Women of the cell and cloister

•ERSITYOF
•ALIFORNIA

• SAN DIEGO

A

j

!

WOMEN OF THE CELL AND
CLOISTER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FAMOUS BLUE-STOCKINGS. With Six-
teen Illustrations. Demy 8vo, IDS. 6d. net
BEHIND THE VEIL. Illustrated by AUSTIN
O. SPARE. Small 410, 6s. net (Nutt)

ST. CATHKK1NE OF SIHNA
From Ihritnttmporary fortraitby .-tmirta till Vanni

WOMEN OF THE CELL
AND CLOISTER

BY

ETHEL ROLT-WHEELER

"Mais les plus exaltes se dirent dans leur coeur :
' Partons quand meme, avec notre ame inassouvie,
Puisque la force et que la vie
Sont au dela des verites et des erreurs.'

Toute la vie est dans 1'essor."

&MILE VERHAERKN

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

,ONDON

First Published in 1913

TO
MY MOTHER

AND

MY FATHER

CONTENTS

PAGE

Sx MARY OF EGYPT

The Desert ..... i
The Penitent . . . . . II

Sx BRIGID OF IRELAND

Milk ...... 25

Fire ...... 47

HELOISE

The Intellectual Background . . .58

The Love Story . . . .70

ST CLARE

The Lady Poverty . . . .94

The Little Flower of St Francis . . 109

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH

Calor, canor, dulcor .... 141
The Anchoress .... 156

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA

In the Cell of Self-Knowledge . . 175

In the World . . . . .198

ST TERESA

The Seventh Mansion .... 223
The Reform ..... 249

THE MERE ANGELIQUE

The Shell of Dogma . . . .271

The Kernel . . . . .288

INDEX ...... 325

vii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Sx CATHERINE OF SIENA . . . Frontispiece

From the Contemporary Portrait by Andrea del Vanni.
Photograph : Lombard!, Siena

TO FACE PAGE

THE LIFE OF ST MARY OF EGYPT . . 16

As represented in a Stained Glass Window in the
Cathedral at Bourges

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND . . . .38

After Cahier

TOMB OF HELOISE AND ABELARD . ga

Pere la Chaise Cemetery, Paris. Photograph :
Neurdein freres, Paris

ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI . . . .112

From an early Portrait in the Church of Sacro Speco,
Subiaco

ST CLARE, HOLDING HER EMBLEMS, WITH ST

ELIZABETH , . . . .132

From a Painting by Tiberio d'Assisi. Photograph :
Alinari, Florence

CHURCH OF ST JULIAN, NORWICH. . .158

Showing Site of Dame Juliana's Anchorage, and
Window, marked with a cross, which opened from
her Cell into the Church. From "Revelations de
1' Amour de Dieu," edited by D. Gabriel Meurnier,
By permission of H. Oudin, Paris

ix

x WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

TO FACE PACK

PALACE OF THE POPES, AVIGNON . . .212

Photograph ; Neurdein freres, Paris

ST TERESA ...... 250

From the Contemporary Portrait by Fra Juan de la
Miseria. From Miss H. H. Colvill's "St Teresa of
Spain "

THE ABB£ DE SAINT-CYRAN . . . 274

From an Engraving after the Portrait by Philippe de
Champagne

THE MERE ANG£LIQUE .... 288
From Van Schuppen's Engraving of the Portrait by
Philippe de Champagne

THE MERE AGNES AND SOEUR CATHERINE DE

SAINTE-SUZANNE . . . .312

From the ex-voto of Philippe de Champagne, in the
Louvre

WOMEN OF THE CELL AND
CLOISTER

ST MARY OF EGYPT

The Desert

A SCETICISM is kin to the desert. The gleaming
/A. wastes of the desert offer no entanglements
for the senses ; no change of season disturbs its un-
broken monotony. The soul that is striving after
the absolute gains support from the desert silence,
the desert solitude, the desert immensities. Space
so vast that it seems to create an extension of vision ;
light so intense that it thrills new faculties into life ;
air so virgin that you would say it must blow from
the very fount of Purity itself — all these contribute
to sustain the high level of contemplation ; while
the cruelties of the desert — its heat, its aridity, its
thirst — serve as whips to scourge the desires of the
flesh and to discipline the body into submission and
obedience.

The annihilation of the lower self was the aim of the
mystic, both Pagan and early Christian ; and the
desert was his chosen place of abode. The ascetic
life, therefore, involving conviction of sin and purifica-
tion by means of penance, is best studied in the
desert, where it flourished most extensively. For
the desert is symbol of a beauty not dependent on the
changing loveliness of the year, but on immutable
spaces and light eternal.

This beauty of the desert, which has found its most
perfect description in modern times, must insensibly
have affected the thoughts and aspirations of the
ancient Fathers. Green, the colour of life, that
in Northern climes lays soothing touch upon weary
eyes and brain, was absent from the picture ; unless,
indeed, the vivid emerald of the garden of Egypt
entered into the anchorite's distant perspective,
intensified in tone by the black Nile, and perhaps by
a flash of dark blue sea. In that air of telescopic
clearness, the far mountains burned with the glow
and definition of missal illuminations — incandescent
scarlet and flaming violet ; the very stones of the
desert, amid the pale undulations of sand, shone
orange and amber and black and purple, as if they
were damp with water. White stones, heaved up by
some convulsion at the beginning of time, assumed
through incalculable ages strange and stranger
shapes : they peopled the place with shadows ol
fearful intensity. But not always was the desert
sharp-cut in outline ; sometimes the mountains
would become uprooted, and float, pink and lilac,
in blue haze ; or liquid mists of grey-rose, or molten
gold would fill the wastes with a soft or dazzling
glory. The effect of such scenes on the mind can
only be described in paradox. In these vast solitudes
and unbroken silences man felt himself infinitely
little and infinitely great ; the changing splendours,
divorced from all human occupations and human
needs, crushed, and at the same time exalted him.

In Egypt, that land of gigantic contrasts, the town

ST MARY OF EGYPT 3

and the desert lay side by side in startling juxta-
position— the world of the flesh and the world of the
spirit impinged so sharply that you might stand with
one foot in the green paradise of sensuous things,
and one in the golden and burning sands of spiritual
endeavour. For the soil of Egypt is so fertile that
the tiniest trickle of a stream and a few grains of seed
produce an abundance of vegetation, while beyond
the reach of the waters, sudden desert stretches in
unbroken aridity. On the one hand, safety, comfort,
ease, companionship ; on the other, the dreadful
unknown.

It is a little difficult for us in the present age to
realize the terrifying adventures which the desert
presented to the imagination of the early solitaries.
Bodily hardship did not daunt them, nor even the
peril of wild beasts ; but it required a sublime
courage to go forth into a region inhabited by
strange monsters and haunted by powerful demons.
The light of the desert exaggerated proportions,
distorted appearances ; harmless bushes and animals
assumed malignant shapes ; excited imagination
peopled the unexplored vasts with horrors.

But granting the high spirit and noble purpose of
the Christian solitaries, we may pause to ask : What
had the extreme penances the hermits practised, the
rules by which they guided their lives, their fierce
combats with fiends, to do with the teaching of
Christ and his apostles ? It was the social and not
the solitary virtues that Christ preached ; extremes
of asceticism have no recognized place in the Gospel.

4 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Asceticism, however, was one of the most powerful
traditions of the pre-Christian religions of the East ; for
centuries Buddhist hermits had made the desert their
place of abode, and the Jewish sect of the Essenes
was dispersed over Syria and Egypt. Even Stoicism
and Neoplatonism contained elements of asceticism.
Purification was held by the mystics of every creed
to be the first step in the spiritual life. Detachment
from things of the sense and mortification of the
flesh were not practised as ends in themselves, but
were regarded as mere stages, sometimes as brief
stages, on the path to illumination, to perfection.
Little wonder that Christian converts, quickened by
a new revelation of the Deity and a new consciousness
of the importance of the soul, should have followed
the traditional road in their searchings after God.

The climate of the East made possible the exist-
ence of recluses in large numbers. In Egypt the air
is so sustaining that the body can subsist on the very
scantiest food. The Christian hermits were content
with a little bread and water, and often food was not
touched till sunset-time. We read of a solitary who
lived on one grain of rice a day. Salt, herbs, oil, a
fig, a date — these were regarded as luxuries to be but
rarely partaken. With regard to shelter, the desert
offered many natural and artificial caves and galleries.
Its stone is principally limestone, which, under the
action of time and weather, rises into fantastic shapes,
and curves into hollows. The desert is full of holes
and caverns, which, with some slight additional
labour from the hand of man, become possible

ST MARY OF EGYPT 5

dwelling-places. The hermits also took up their
abode in abandoned subterranean cells and galleries
made by the ancient Egyptians for temples or for
tombs. Some anchorites, however, disdained a roof,
and slept always in the open. A community of
solitaries in the great Syrian desert lived thus on the
mountains without any shelter, meeting daily for
prayer and praise. They ate no bread ; each had a
small sickle with which he cut a few wild herbs for
his sustenance.

St Antony the Great (251-356) is generally ac-
counted the founder of Egyptian monachism.
Before his time there were indeed Christian recluses
in the desert, and even communities of hermits ;
but his memory towers above that of his predecessors,
and his story has vital elements in it that have kept
it alive to the present day. So his figure makes a
convenient landmark — though he was no " founder,"
in the technical sense of the word. His sounding
example, his widespread fame, drew many an ardent
disciple to the desert, and these naturally wished to
build their little huts in the neighbourhood of so great
a saint. Thus spontaneously an organization grew
up, its members following at first each his own rule,
each working at some self-imposed labour, as the
plaiting of mats or the making of ropes, and uniting
only for common worship. As time went on, such
loosely strung organisms developed into the dis-
ciplined monastery.

The keynote of the ascetic life, as conceived by St
Antony, is to be found in the answer he gave to

6 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

some heathen philosopheis who came to visit him
on Mount Colzim. His encounter with these dialec-
ticians shows us that, unlettered as Antony was, his
mind was equal in acuteness to theirs. " You boast
of the proofs which you produce, and require also
that we should not honour God without proofs," he
said, " Tell me, therefore, how is the true know-
ledge of all things, and above all, the knowledge of
God, attained ? Is it a knowledge through instruc-
tion, or a knowledge springing immediately from the
power of faith ? Which is the most ancient, know-
ledge through reason or knowledge through faith ? "
The philosophers replied : " Knowledge through
faith is the most ancient." " You have rightly
answered," said Antony, " for faith arises from the
direct application of the soul to divine things ; and
dialectics are only the science of making inferences
about divine things by reflection and abstraction . . .
therefore knowledge through faith is surer and more
sublime than your sophistical conclusions."

The direct application of the soul to divine things.
The very latest exposition of philosophy does no
more than express Antony's position in modern
terminology. Religion still rests upon this dictum
of Antony. "It is in the moral and spiritual
sciences as it is in the physical and mathematical,"
says Cardinal Manning, " We must have axioms to
start with, and unless we possess certain principles
of truth which are in themselves evident, and
anterior to all reasoning, we have no starting points,
and the mind is unable, not only to make progress,

ST MARY OF EGYPT 7

but even to set out on its activity. . . . The know-
ledge of God gives the axioms of the spiritual life,
and of the knowledge of self."

The desire for knowledge of the divine and com-
munion with the divine was at bottom the lure that
drew men in their tens of thousands to the wild
places. It is computed that the number of Egyptian
monks in the year 395 was seventy-six thousand ; and
of nuns, twenty thousand, seven hundred. Com-
munities of hermits were called Caenobitic, and the
brothers of such orders wore a long linen robe with a
woollen girdle round the waist : over it was thrown
a cloak of sheepskin. Sandals were only resorted to
in extreme rigours of heat and of cold.

Not only weie the rules of life which were adopted
by Christian hermits based on Eastern traditions of
monachism : the very gods and goddesses of Pagan
worship were incorporated into the Christian system.
For the early Christians did not hold the ancient
deities disproved out of existence : they were only
deposed. They were entities still, powerful and
terrible, demons, antagonists of God, to be con-
quered— if faith were strong enough to conquer —
by the sign of the cross or the word of Christ. True,
the Pagan idols were only stock and stone, but they
represented realities — an ever-present danger, a con-
tinual menace to the struggling soul. In the " Life
of St Anthony," by St Athanasius— that book which,
as we read in the " Confessions," led to the conversion
of St Augustine — we find the first extant sermon on
Demonology, probably an interpolation, but inter-

8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

esting as showing the unshaken hold which the Pagan
religions still exercised over Christian converts, and
the explanation adopted by Christian teachers. St
Antony's own life gives us a most illuminating
illustration of the methods assigned to demons,
and the clashing warfare necessary for victory over
them.

But amid these frightful combats with the fiends,
amid the sharp pangs of the flesh and spirit, the
harsh and terrible penances extending over decades,
the frosts and the burnings, spiritual as well as
physical, the story of Christianity shone out with
soothing and tender light. The hermits lacerated
their own bodies, and endured excruciating pains ;
but, unlike the Religious of later times, they dwelt
in imagination, not upon the agony of the Crucifixion,
but upon the glory of the Resurrection. The visions
they had of Jesus were visions of delight : the scorn
poured by the heathen upon their crucified God led
the early Christians to lay emphasis upon the joy
and the victory, the hope and the promise of their
faith. It has been pointed out that in the cata-
combs— those refuges from brutal injustice and
hideous persecution — we find no symbols that are
not peaceful and radiant. The Lamb and the Good
Shepherd are represented, vintage and harvest
scenes,, flowers and palms and doves ; but the agonies
of death and the terrors of hell are the work of a later
and more morbid generation. The cross itself
appears but rarely in early Christian art ; and the
crucifix, with the dead figure of Christ upon it, is not

ST MARY OF EGYPT 9

found till the tenth century. Monks of other ages
have undergone penances as great as those of the
Egyptian hermits, but they have been taught, not
merely to submit the body to physical pain, but to
dwell upon it continually in imagination, and so
their visions sometimes lack the sweetness, the bliss,
the illumination, of those whose minds were set
rather upon celestial things.

Not always, however, were the Egyptian monks
animated by a spirit of gentleness, of lovingkindness.
After a generation or so, when the first enthusiasm
for divine things had waned, the solitary life was
apt to breed bigotry. Isolation from the world
induced a spirit of ignorance, harshness and violence.
This is not the place to trace the development of
fanaticism, or to show the monks of Nitria raiding
Alexandria and murdering Hypatia : our concern is
with the simple devotees of earlier times.

A few of them fled from persecution — St Paul of
Thebes, for instance, said to be the first Christian
hermit — but most of them fled from a dying world —
a world of hopelessness and despair. The great
Roman Empire was tottering to its fall, displaying
in hideous phases all the symptoms of corruption
and rot. The old Roman virtues of duty and
patriotism were dead ; money, pleasure, dissipation,
were the sole objects of life. Positions in the state
were closed except to the basest intriguer ; appoint-
ments were made by favourites and the creatures of
favourites. An inordinate luxury without refinement,
flaunting vices and degenerate cruelty — such were

io WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the characteristics of the cities. Weariness and de-
pression weighed upon mankind ; art and literature
languished ; over all was the decadence of languor
and disease. Among the Christians themselves,
when the time of persecution was over, was a din of
never-ending controversy, a fierce warfare of words
and subtleties, unutterably fatiguing to the spirit.
A mere recitation of the various sects and their
various doctrines leads the mind into a whirlpool of
bewilderment. The Arians, who held that the Parent
Deity was prior to the Son, and that at a time in-
conceivably remote the Son was begotten by an act
of sovereign will ; the Nestorians, who claimed Mary
as the mother of God ; the Priscillianists, who adopted
doctrines of Dualism ; the Monophysites, who main-
tained that the human and divine were so mingled
in Christ as to be inseparable; the Manichaeans, whose
vast system was a blend of Christianity, Zoroastrian-
ism and Buddhism — these were but a few of the
sects whose divisions of opinion deluged whole
countries with blood.

No wonder that the still small voice of God could
not be heard among this babble of tongues ; no
wonder that the earnest man fled into the wilderness
that he might possess his soul in peace. Contro-
versy pursued him even there — Athanasius sent
for Antony when that solitary was over one hundred
years old, to help him in argument against the Arians
— for Athanasius was their most vigorous opponent ;
though his so-called creed was not in existence till
two centuries later. But the solitary could return

ST MARY OF EGYPT n

once more to recollection, to contemplation, to
peace : he could at least keep burning in the desert
the flame of spiritual endeavour, extinguished by
the materialism and the bigotry of the towns ; and
even his sensational penances served to awaken men
to the reality of the life unseen, the all-importance of
the soul. St Simeon Stylites on his pillar ninety feet
high, engaged in genuflexions which to us appear
either absurd or insane, stood symbol to the people
of his time of the victory of spirit over matter ; and
Mary of Egypt, burnt out of all semblance of woman-
hood by the desert sun, was worshipped in her own
and succeeding ages for a holiness that transcended
the body and reached to a mystic union with
God.

The Penitent

We vision the city of Alexandria in the fourth
century enclosed between its walls and the azure
sea, a teeming hive of multifarious life. Here
was the centre of the intellectual activity of the
Roman world ; here East and West met on common
ground. Here the old world battled in its death-
struggle with the new ; here ancient philosophies and
nascent speculations hurtled in wild confusion.
Alexandria was a very chaos of beliefs, opinions,
theories, aims, ambitions, aspirations — of exaggera-
tions generated by disintegration, and of faiths
struggling through fanaticism. The very architec-
ture of the streets was a jumble of antagonistic

12 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

ideas, where Egyptian obelisks rose beside Greek
temples of Corinthian columns. No city of to-day
offers a parallel in diversity of population. Greek
and Indian, Jew, Egyptian, Negro ; the daintily
perfumed heathen philosopher, the priest of Osiris,
with panther-skin on his shoulders, the Roman
soldier, the desert monk, the Gothic barbarian, wove
a many-coloured pageant of fiercely contrasting
strands.

Out of this welter of peoples and creeds three
factions assumed alternate dominance — the Jews,
the Pagans and the Christians. Sharp-drawn as are
the distinctions between these contending factions,
each of them contained within itself contrasts almost
as striking. Within the Christian fold, flaunting
luxury and incredible asceticism went side by side.
Take, for example, the following types of Christian
worshippers. We see the rich lady set down at the
church in a magnificent litter borne by slaves ; her
false hair, dyed gold, is dressed to an inordinate
height ; her face is painted ; chains and rings jingle
all over her person, and her silk dress is embroidered
with subjects from Scripture, the Marriage of Cana
or the Paralytic carrying his Bed.

Not chains for ornament but chains for penance
wear down another type of Christian devotee. The
virgin recluses, Marana and Cyra, lived for forty
years in a mandra — that is, a space surrounded by a
wall but open to the elements. Their frail bodies,
exposed to all weathers and worn by fasting, were
weighed down by heavy chains round neck, waist,

ST MARY OF EGYPT 13

hands and feet. Shrouded in long veils, they spent
their time in prayer and penance. But though these
anchoresses won the admiration of the bishops and
the people of their time, they have failed to impress
the popular imagination of succeeding ages. Self-
inflicted punishment for sin is comprehensible to the
meanest intelligence, and appears in the light of
justice ; but self-inflicted punishment for sinlessness
is to many lay minds a morbid outrage. Mary of
Egypt, wanton of Alexandria, is the saint, not Cyra
or Marana — Mary of Egypt, who stands associated
in popular veneration and affection with Mary of
Magdala ; Mary of Egypt, whose memory is still
so green that chapels are to-day raised in her honour
in Paris, and frescoes painted showing forth her life.
We see her first, a vital element in Alexandria's
fierce life of luxury and vice, a nature even then
intense, burning, ardent, following money and
pleasure with the same reckless abandonment that
she afterwards showed in following holy things.
There is a story, not of Mary of Egypt, but of an-
other saint, Pelagia of Antioch, which illustrates
very clearly the attitude of the nobler members of
the church to women of that class. Nonnus, the
Bishop of Edessa, was preaching at St Julian's Church
at Antioch. So great was the concourse of people
gathered to hear him that the doors of the church
had to be left open. Suddenly, in the dark framework
of the door, lit by clear Eastern light, he saw a sharp
vision of beauty — a woman riding on a white mule
with golden trappings, who reined in for a moment

14 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

and peeped with idle curiosity at the assembled
worshippers. Her hair fell from her diadem down
to her feet, and her rich apparel sparkled with jewels.
Unmindful of the Bishop and his sermon, all the
congregation turned round to look on her, for this
was the famous Pelagia, chief singer and dancer of
the theatre of Antioch. The bishops discreetly
closed their eyes from beholding vanity — all except
Nonnus, who gazed long at the woman, and gazed
after her when she had passed with her train of
magnificent servitors. After the sermon was over,
the good Bishop was much troubled in his mind,
for he read in Pelagia's passing a reproach for his own
slackness. " This woman," he thought, " has trained
her body in all graces and decked it with all attrac-
tions : I take less pains to win the favour of God,
than she to win the favour of man." So in deep
abjectness of spirit he cast himself on the ground,
and prayed God's forgiveness. But at night there
came to him, in a vision, a larger reading of the lesson.
This was the dream that he related to his deacon
the next morning. " When I was celebrating the
Holy Mysteries," he said, " I was vexed almost past
bearing by a white dove, terribly soiled, which kept
fluttering and flying about my head. Greatly it
disturbed me when I gave my blessing at the end of
the Holy Mass. At last I caught it and dipped it
in the vase of holy water that stands at the entrance
of the church. Then the dove became white as
snow, and flew so high above me that I could no
longer follow its flight."

ST MARY OF EGYPT 15

A white dove, terribly soiled. By this symbol we
know that the true spirit of Christianity still had its
being amid the crash of controversy and creed, of
faction-fight and riot and murder : the spirit that
distinguishes Christianity from other noble religions,
and that makes it pre-eminently the religion of the
poor, the desolate and the oppressed. For this
woman, dragged in the mire of a great city, is
visioned under the holy image of the Spirit — soiled
and darkened, it may be, but still divine. So with
tender love Nonnus thought upon Pelagia as a child
of God, despite her sin and shame. So with tender
love the Christians of old times, following the ex-
ample of their Master, have thought upon Mary
Magdalene. Of all sinners, she was the first to be
pardoned by Christ, the first to shed bitter tears at his
cross, the first to have knowledge of his Resurrection.
And in the universal devotion accorded to Mary
Magdalene, Mary of Egypt shares ; they stand
constantly together in pictorial representation : Mary
Magdalene young and beautiful and fairly clad,
Mary of Egypt old and worn and in rags.

Among ancient documents we find an almost
contemporary record of St Mary in a " Life of St
Cyriacus" (died 556), written by his disciple Cyril of
Scythopolis ; and a romance in Greek called " The
Acts of St Mary of Egypt," which is founded on this
mention of her, and on the legends which have gathered
about her name. The " Acts " are themselves ancient
enough, dating back as far as the seventh century,
and they are supposed to have been written by St

16 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (died 639). If
Sophronius was indeed the author, he was a man
highly gifted as a narrator ; for the story, as he tells
it, is full of colour and atmosphere, of dramatic
surprise and tender feeling. Let us first give briefly
the framework on which he worked — the only
authentic allusion to Mary, which occurs in the
" Life of St Cyriacus." It is a simple tale that the
monk has to tell, general in feature, and lacking
individuality ; it would cover the life of many a
recluse who lived and died unnoted in those desert
wilds. One day it chanced that two disciples of St
Cyriacus, who dwelt in the desert beyond Jordan,
wandered farther into the wilderness than they had
ever been before ; and they saw a human being
moving among the bushes ; but when they ap-
proached, it disappeared. Thinking this must be
some snare of the evil spirit, they prayed against
temptation ; later they found the creature again in
a cave, but it cried to them not to come near, for
she was a woman and was naked. They questioned
her who she was, and she replied that she was a
public sinner named Mary, who had led many into
evil : but she had repented her sins and had fled to
the desert to do penance. When they came again
they found her dead in her cave ; and they brought
spades and buried her where she lay. Such is the
framework on which the writer of " The Acts of St
Mary " wove his story.

. The cave in which Mary lived was her cell of
penance, her " cell of self-knowledge." She was

THE LIFE OF ST. MARY OF EGYPT
As represented in a stained glass -window i:t the Caihedr

ST MARY OF EGYPT 17

not enclosed, like her contemporaries who dwelt in
mandras, or the anchoresses of later times ; her cell
was merely a self-appointed place of shelter and of
prayer. Almost all classes of Egyptian hermits, as
we have pointed out, had their cells in natural or
artificial caves, or, in the ancient temples and tombs
that abounded in the desert : but the thought of this
woman absolutely alone in such a solitude is terrify-
ing to the imagination — especially after reading " The
Acts of St Mary," which give her a personality
vivid and individual.

In these " Acts " we have scenes of extraordinary
dramatic power ; Alexandria, the City of Pleasure,
Jerusalem, the City of. Salvation, stand actual and
yet symbolic before our eyes. The story is told with
delicate skill and a most sweet tenderness, with
abundance of detail, so that it lives before our eyes ;
and it is small wonder that it captured the imagina-
tion of succeeding ages, especially as miraculous
occurrences were interwoven in the fabric and added
to its popular appeal. A Latin translation of the
" Acts " was made in the eighth century, and
versions exist in Anglo-Saxon and in ancient Spanish.
Here is the story :

There dwelt in Palestine a monk named Zosimus,
who from childhood had sought above all things
else the love and service of God. And it seemed to
him that he walked the way of perfection, and the
seeds of pride grew in his heart. But there passed a
stranger, who told him of a company of men beyond
Jordan, serving God in a holier spirit than he. So

i8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Zosimus set forth to find them, and, dwelling among
them, he learned humility, and the evil of his self-
esteem withered to the roots. Now it was the custom
of these men to spend the solemn fast of Lent in
solitude in the desert, separating one from the other
on the first Sunday in Lent, and meeting again for
prayer and thanksgiving on Palm Sunday ; and of
his practices during those days no man had to give
account ; and this was done that the weaker brethren
might not be cast down, nor the stronger brethren
puffed up with pride. So, having partaken of a light
refection, and exchanged one with another the Kiss of
Peace, they went forth into the wilderness, chanting
a psalm, and dispersed in various ways.

Zosimus turned his face to the east, and for twenty
days he wandered over the burning sands, and no
creature or sign of life disturbed the silence or the
solitude. But on the twentieth day, as he prayed,
his face towards the east, and his hands uplifted to
heaven, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a rough,
hairy thing, upright, like a human being. At first
he thought it was a snare of the devil set to deceive
him, but, taking courage, he looked more closely, and
the thing fled, and he pursued it. Then indeed he
saw that it was a human creature, with skin tanned
black and hair turned white by the desert sun. His
heart rejoiced within him, for he thought it to be some
holy hermit. And he cried aloud : "Do not fly from
me, most holy father, but stay and give me your
benediction." Still the creature fled and clambered
over a dry watercourse, and still Zosimus followed,

ST MARY OF EGYPT 19

calling to it to stop. And when it had reached the
other side of the watercourse it answered him :
" Come no nearer, for the love of God, for I am a
woman and am naked, but throw me over your cloak
that I may clothe myself therewith." So Zosimus
cast over his cloak, and turned away his eyes while
she wrapped it about her. And when she was
clothed, he, kneeling on his side of the watercourse,
prayed for the blessing of this holy woman. But
she, kneeling on the other side, craved his — " for
thou," she said, " art a priest, and hast offered upon
the altar the Holy Sacrifice." Much he marvelled
that she should have this knowledge, and ever more
earnestly he begged her benediction. She told him
her story.

She was an Egyptian, and when she was twelve
years old she fled from home to the great wicked city
of Alexandria. There she became a player of musical
instruments, and led a life of wantonness and sin.
And after seventeen years she took passage on a ship
that was carrying pilgrims to the Holy Land, and
this she did, not that she might avail herself of the
pilgrimage as a means of grace, but to introduce dis-
order and vice among the pilgrims. And in this evil
design she succeeded only too well. Now when they
were come up to Jerusalem for the great festival of the
Exaltation of the Cross, she went as far as the church
with the other pilgrims ; but at the door an invisible
barrier stopped her, so that she could not pass the
portal. Then shame came upon her, and terror,
and, kneeling before an image of the Blessed Virgin

20 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

that stood in a niche of the door, her own sin and
blackness rushed upon her like a flood, and with bitter
tears and anguished prayers she besought Mary to
remove the barrier that she might enter the church
and embrace the True Cross. And after she had
prayed there was no longer any hindrance, and she
crept in. And a Voice came to her, saying : " Pass
over Jordan and there find peace." So, having com-
municated in the Church of St John the Baptist, she
bathed her face and hands in the waters of Jordan,
and went into the wilderness, taking a few loaves
with her. Then Zosimus asked her how long she had
dwelt in the desert, and she answered him forty-
seven years, as she thought. For seventeen years
she had suffered grievous torment and temptation
from the desires of the flesh and the memory of her
old life ; she had suffered cold and hunger, and her
garments had rotted and fallen from her. But at
the end of that time she had found peace. And she
prayed this boon of Zosimus, that he would come
again next Lent, and bring with him the Holy Sacra-
ment, and wait for her on the bank of the Jordan.
When next Lent came, Zosimus was grievously
sick, and could not go with the other brethren
into the wilderness. But before the end of Lent he
was well enough to set forth, taking with him the
Holy Elements and a few dates and figs in a little
basket. Night came, and he did not find Mary ; but
when the full moon had risen he saw her standing on
the other side of Jordan. And she came across to
him, and the waters upheld her. He gave her the

ST MARY OF EGYPT 21

Kiss of Peace, and communicated her, promising
that he would come again the Lent following, And
when he came again he found her lying dead by
Jordan, wrapped in the shreds of his old mantle.
These words were traced in the sand : " Father
Zosimus, bury here the body of the sinner Mary."
But Zosimus was feeble and aged, and he had no
spade. Then came out of the desert a lion, and with
his paws made for the body a hole in the sand, and
there Zosimus laid Mary to await the resurrection of
the dead.

The tenderness of this story — its romance, its
tragedy, its terror — have brought it very close to the
affections and the imaginations of men. It has
elements in it that appeal to all ages. The mediaeval
mind dwelt with delight and awe on its miraculous
events. As the colours came soft and rich through
the stained glass in the cathedral at Bourges or at
Chartres, the worshipper watched the wonderful
incidents of Mary's life set forth in concrete detail
with stiff simplicity ; his eye dwelt reverently on the
three small loaves that Mary carried into the wilder-
ness, and on the paws of the grotesque lion that dug
the grave. One of the sweetest traits of the story, the
reverence so unhesitatingly given by Zosimus to the
holy woman, he would have accepted with perfect
understanding. The crisis in her life, at once dramatic
and spiritual, appealed to later and more philosophic
times — that moment when a mysterious power held
her back from entering the church at Jerusalem.
In the Church of San Pietro-in-P6 at Cremona (where

22 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

relics are preserved, said to be those of St Mary of
Egypt) there is a large picture by Malosso represent-
ing this subject ; and Ribera has also chosen it for
one of his paintings. We of the present day, looking
back upon that age, gorgeous with all the colours of
decay, see Mary of Egypt a flame of zeal upon a
burning background. She stands in startling con-
trast to Brigid of Ireland, the Mary of the Gaels, the
subject of our next paper. Brigid was born into a
young world, and all the freshness of Spring and of
dew is in her story ; but Mary of Egypt had to be
born again out of an old world and an old life of sin
and shame and suffering. Brigid is of the " once-
born," to use Francis Newman's pregnant phrase —
she is the radiant virgin, pure in mind and body and
soul ; full of joy and peace and hope. The Star is one
of her symbols, the symbol of the First Initiation,
the birth of purity into the world. But Mary of
Egypt, wanton of Alexandria, is of the " twice-
born " : she had to reach purity through hateful
knowledge and bitter experience. She had to re-create
her personality and that by action, not by thought :
to purge away all the evil and harmful elements by
means of detachment and penance. Her soul had
to go through a new birth, the Second Initiation,
symbolized by the baptism of water. The Church of
St John the Baptist, and baptism in Jordan, are im-
portant elements in Mary's story ; and it is possible
that the incident of her miraculous passage over
Jordan has an esoteric significance. Nor in this
connexion can we forget the poignant image of the

ST MARY OF EGYPT 23

Bishop of Edessa, who visioned the woman of the
town under the shape of a soiled dove : the symbol
of the dove being the symbol of the Spirit and closely
connected with the rite of baptism.

To-day we sigh in vain for such holy tenderness
of insight into the darkest lives in all the world.
For the worship of — even the interest in — the Mag-
dalene, St Pelagia, Mary of Egypt, is not allowed
to have any bearing on modern problems. Indeed,
many are troubled to think that any sinner should
reach heights of wisdom often denied to the righteous.
Yet what infinite comfort has been experienced by
tormented souls as they looked up at the glowing
image of Mary of Egypt in the stained glass, from
the thought that she understood their trials and
temptations and anguish — that she had passed that
way herself and knew its bitterness. Old and ugly
and tortured, she was very close to common humanity,
and yet she was a holy saint of God, and her victory
and glory made possible the victory and glory of the
meanest of mankind.

The sinner often has a passionate strength, an
intense vitality unknown to more passive natures,
and these qualities, turned with a fiery ardour of
enthusiasm to divine things, achieve incredible
victories. A profound knowledge of the depths may
show the sublimities in truer proportion, and make
possible that intimate sympathy with struggling and
suffering man which can only be born out of
experience. Christ the Sower — some hold — can sow
best in ploughed ground :

24 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

" Lo, all my heart's field red and torn,
And thou wilt bring the young gieen com .- .- .
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy Everlasting Mercy, Christ.'2

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND
Milk

NO study of sainthood presents points of greater
difficulty or of more absorbing interest than the
study of St Brigid (or Bride) of Kildare. The living
influence that she still exercises, not only over the
peasantry, but over the mystics of Ireland, is due in
part to the legends which connect her so intimately
with the Christ-child that ancient writers call her
the Second Mary, in part to her association with the
pre-Christian goddess Brigid. To no other saint
has tradition given assumptions so tremendous ; no
other woman has been crowned with the ideal of
womanhood, both Pagan and Christian. For the
sake of clearness, it seems well to treat the two
aspects of Brigid — the Christian and the Pagan
aspect — under the two symbols assigned her in
traditional pictures, the symbol of Milk and the
symbol of Fire. On the one hand we have Brigid the
Milkmaid, Brigid the Saint, foster-mother of Jesus,
invoked to this day by the Gaelic peasant women at
the moment of childbirth ; on the other hand we
have Brigid the Bright, Brigid the Fiery Dart, holding
a perpetual flame in her hand and with a column of
fire rising above her head.
We look back into the past, and we see Brigid

25

26 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

standing afar on the threshold of Christianity ; only
faintly we catch the glimmer of her white robe, for
all about her are the misty dreams that have been
woven by her lovers through the ages, and upon
these play the red light of Pagan belief and the white
light of Christian faith. It is very hard to reach,
under these veils of glory, the woman of the fifth
century, friend of the poor, counsellor of bishops and
kings, foundress of a great monastery, a great school
and a great city. We have to remember, however,
that Brigid herself inspired the devotion that so
magnified her, the intensity of fervour that could
only find expression in highly charged images.

Few contrasts could be more striking than the
contrast between the story of St Mary of Egypt and
the story of St Brigid. The life of St Mary partakes
of the nature of the desert — mentally as well as
physically she suffers its fierceness and its burning.
The life of St Brigid shines with the " healing of the
White Peace" and the softness of dew; her white
robe glimmers between the trunks of oak groves and
over lush pasture fields, and she brings to all, with full
hands, the gifts of quiet and of hope. The dandelion,
" the little notched flower of Bride," peeps from the
ground ; the linnet, " the little bird of Bride," pipes
from the bushes. The riot of tempestuous life, the
jagged edge of remorse, seem to belong by nature to
that seething Oriental civilization under its merciless
skies ; while Brigid the Bright moves fittingly in the
pale and radiant air of Ireland athrill with the new
life that beats to be free.

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 27

The story of Brigid is a story of beginnings and
birth. Her day is set at the beginning of the year ;
she lives at the beginning of Christianity in Ireland ;
her symbol of Milk is the beginning, not only of
physical, but, as we shall see, of spiritual sustenance
as well.

The ist of February is Bride's Day, when in the
world of nature all is hush and expectation. Life in its
completion is not yet, but there is a stir in the under-
world of the roots, a swirl of green in twig and branch,
and the far glow of purple. The tense stillness holds
in bud and shoot, a dream, a promise, a glory ; and all
about one is the sweetness, the wonder, the mystery
of a new birth. Brigid stands on the threshold of the
Spring, unstained virgin and symbol of motherhood ;
the whiteness of blossom is about her ; she puts her
finger on the river, says the Gaelic Highlander, and
the ice melts ; she breathes upon the world and the
Winter is gone. The very wood that she kneels upon
at the altar, we read, making her profession as a nun,
grows green and fresh at her touch.

The beginnings of Christianity in Ireland were
marked by a like access of vitality, that blossomed
into perfect fulfilment and developed unconquerable
missionary zeal. The artistic impulse produced bell-
shrines and missals and processional crosses unsur-
passed in beauty and purity of imagination and
craftsmanship ; the missionary impulse drove the
Irish overseas to Italy, Germany, France, Switzer-
land, and even to Iceland and Africa. St Columba,
in 563, founded the great monastery of lona ; St

28 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Aidan, in 634, evangelized Northumbria. Brigid also
stands on the threshold of this Spring, artistic and
missionary, stimulating its flower and fruit ; her
school of metalwork at Kildare was famed for its
exquisite production, and in her time a book of the
Four Evangelists was illuminated in her monastery,
rivalling in loveliness the Book of Kells. Though
she never left Ireland, she made many journeys over
it, and her disciples carried her fame from one end of
Europe to the other. Her divine office was recited,
not only in Ireland, England and Scotland, but in
France, Belgium and Germany ; it is still met with
in the missals and breviaries of Cologne, Maestricht,
Mayence, Treves, Wirtsburg, Constance, Strasbourg
and other European towns.

Even before the coming of Christianity, Ireland was
a civilized country with a highly organized social life.
It possessed one of the completest codes of law in the
world — the Brehon Law — so minute hi its regula-
tions that the " bee-judgments " alone — i.e. the
law concerning the finding of swarms — occupy
twenty pages of printed text. The Brehon Law
regulated in detail the rights, duties and privileges
of the various classes of the community, and, among
other things, forbade, on pain of death, quarrelling
at fairs, and made honourable provision for old age.
The arts were cultivated in pre-Christian Ireland —
copper, iron, lead, and possibly tin, were mined for,
and worked into beautiful tools, weapons, utensils
and ornaments. Music and poetry, too, were uni-
versally practised and appreciated. Christianity

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 29

did not interfere materially with social life as organ-
ized by the ancient Irish, but it woke a spiritual im-
pulse and stimulated an artistic fervour that Pagan
Ireland had not known.

Brigid is believed to have been about twelve years
old when Patrick died. Many of the legends which
connect Brigid and Patrick cannot, therefore, be
historically substantiated. There are no contem-
porary authorities for Brigid's life, but in 1647 an
Irish Franciscan Friar, Father John Colgan, published
at Louvain, where he was residing, a volume con-
taining six Lives of St Brigid, most of them being
translations by himself into Latin from the original
Irish. These tracts, of uncertain date, and some-
times mutually contradictory, consist chiefly of a
recital of St Brigid's miracles. The most important
is the work of Cogitosus, a Kildare monk, who wrote
a Latin Life of Brigid at the desire of the community,
prior to the close of the eighth century. These six
Lives constitute the recognized sources of informa-
tion, though there are many other Lives of the saint,
Irish and Latin, in the libraries of Ireland and the
Continent.

Brigid was born about the year 453, probably at
Faughart, about two miles north of Dundalk, in the
diocese of Armagh. Her parents were of noble
blood, her father, Dubhtach, being related to Con of
the Hundred Battles, and her mother, Brotseach,
belonging to the noble house of Dal-Concobhair
(O'Connor). They were Christians, probably con-
verts of St Patrick. So says Cogitosus, but the third,

30 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

fourth and fifth Lives relate that Brigid's mother was
a slave girl, driven from the house like Hagar, by
Dubhtach's wife ; and many modern authorities
support this view. Brigid was from early years of a
singular beauty and purity, and gifted with a spirit
of wide charity. When she had reached the age of
marriage she announced her intention of remaining
a virgin, and on Usny Hill, West Meath, she was
made a nun by the Bishop Maccaille or Maccaleus,
who about the year 469 put a white cloak about her,
and placed on her head a white veil. The ancient
Irish nuns did not have their hair cut on profession,
and it was the custom in ancient Ireland for both
men and women to wear the hair long. Tradition
always assigns to Brigid " yellow locks."

We cannot help contrasting the simple white habit
of the Irish nuns with the peacock attire worn —
against canonical decree, it is true — by their Saxon
sisters. Ealdhelm wrote, in the seventh century, a
treatise on Virginity for the sisterhood at Barking,
in which, after inveighing against the extravagant
costume of the monks, he describes the dress of the
nuns as follows : — " 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."

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 31

But if the Irish nun did not wear the same diversity
of colour, it is possible that she stained her nails
crimson, as the fashion then was, and curled her hair
elaborately, as did also the heroes and churchmen of
Ireland.

When Brigid took the veil there were no definite
religious orders in Christendom ; monasteries sprang
up independently, and followed the rule of any
teacher they chose. Not till about the ninth century
was the Rule of Benedict generally adopted. Brigid
was placed, by the Bishop, in authority over the seven
or eight maidens who professed at the same time as
herself, and this was the beginning of her Rule, which
was followed for many centuries in Ireland. She
remained for some time at Usny, and the fame of her
sanctity spread far and wide, so that maidens and
widows thronged to her, desiring to be under her
guidance.

In order to spread the teachings of Christianity,
Brigid made many missionary journeys about Ireland.
Nuns were not " enclosed " in early Christian times ;
indeed, as late as the twelfth century, and later, we
find the nuns going about as freely as the monks.
St Benedict, whose rule was drafted for women as
well as for men, made no regulation about the en-
closure of nuns, and though, later on, many founders
of orders enjoined enclosure, this rule was generally
dispensed with by permission of superiors, or ignored.
Not till the Council of Trent, 1546 — a thousand years
after Brigid's time — was cloistration definitely en-
forced. Brigid was therefore free to go where she

32 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

pleased, and no ecclesiastic had the right to level at
her the epithets hurled by the papal nuncio at St
Teresa, of " gadabout," " restless, roving, contuma-
cious, disobedient female." Apart from these re-
proaches, we are inclined to think that Brigid, in the
fifth century, travelled more comfortably over Ireland
than Teresa, in the sixteenth, over Spain. There were
fair roads in Ireland, and causeways over the bogs ;
rivers could be crossed by wooden bridges, or ferry-
boats or fords ; at night-time the fords were often
marked by lights. The Irish ox-waggons, the chariots
with awnings of cloth dyed a bright colour or em-
broidered with feathers, were surely as comfortable
as the Spanish covered carts without springs ; while
the hospitality of Ireland was infinitely preferable to
the wretched accommodation of the Spanish inns.
Hospitality ranked as one of the highest virtues in
Ireland, and there were actually free public hostels
established for the entertainment of travellers. The
official in charge was bound to keep one hundred of
each kind of cattle, and one hundred labourers, with
corresponding accommodation for guests. The
kitchen fire was always to be alight, with a cauldron
on it of boiling joints. We read in Keating's History
that there were ninety of these hostels in Connaught,
ninety in Ulster, ninety-three in Leinster, and one
hundred and thirty in Munster. It would seem clear
that Brigid had no extreme hardships of travel
to encounter, since her way led through a civilized,
if somewhat unsettled, country. Moreover, many
of the minor kings already professed Christianity.

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 33

Brigid visited Ardagh and Minister, in the company
of Ere, Bishop of Slane, convert and disciple of St
Patrick, who at a great synod extolled her miraculous
powers. We read of her in the now county of
Limerick, in South Leinster and in Connaught. Her
great monastery of Kildare was founded about the
year 490.

Most of the buildings of Ireland at this time were
constructed of wood, for timber was abundant ; but
there were also stone churches, erected after the
design of St Patrick, some of which are standing to
this day. Christianity offers few relics of the past
so stimulating as these little plain buildings, which
still in remote places seem alive and burning with the
faith that reared them. The first enclosure erected
at Kildare was constructed of wattles and probably
thatched. Kildare signifies The Cell of the Oak, for
Brigid chose her site near or beneath an oak-tree.
This little settlement became the nucleus of a large
monastery for men and women, a large school and a
large city.

It was not unusual in early Christian times for
abbesses to rule over houses of men as well as of
women. The abbess held the same rank as an
abbot : she presided occasionally over important
Church synods, as the Synod of Whitby ; within the
monastery she exercised the power of a bishop and
bore a crosier. It was only in mediaeval times that
convents of women were placed entirely under the
jurisdiction of men, and the difficulties and dangers
arising out of this position formed one of the most
c

34 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

serious problems that saints like Catherine of Siena
and Teresa of Avila had to face. In Ireland, abbots
and abbesses held a more important position than
elsewhere, owing to the fact that the monastery,
and not the diocese, was the centre of religious life.
In Kildare we read that the authority of the abbess
probably superseded that of the bishop. We quote
the following interesting passage from Dr Healy's
" Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars " : —
" Kildare is the only religious establishment in
Ireland which preserved down to a comparatively
recent period the double line of succession of abbot -
bishops and of abbesses, and what is more, the
annalists take care to record the names of the
abbesses as well as the abbots. This, no doubt,
arose from the fact that at least in public estima-
tion the lady-abbesses of Kildare enjoyed a kind of
primacy over all the nuns in Ireland, and, more-
over, were in some sense independent of Episcopal
jurisdiction, if, indeed, the bishops of Kildare were
not to some extent dependent upon them."

It was at this period that Ireland was known all
over Europe as Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum, the
Island of Saints and of Scholars. When all Europe
was dark, mangled with war and festered with decay,
Ireland kept the lamp alight, not only of spiritual
faith, but of intellectual learning ; and students
from all parts of the Continent flocked to her schools.
The three Fathers of the Irish Church, St Finnen,
St Comgall and St Brendan, had each three thousand
scholars under him ( probably including monks) , and

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 35

many of the monastery schools numbered a thousand
pupils. The students were lodged, either in the
monastery or in the houses outside, free of charge ;
more generally, like Abelard's students seven
centuries later at the Paraclete, they constructed
huts for themselves near the school. Kildare's
school rivalled that of Armagh, and, as we have
already mentioned, it had a famous school of metal-
work as well. So Brigid watched the Cell of the
Oak grow into a great monastery, a great school,
a great city, as nuns and monks and scholars and
visitors and strangers from all parts flocked to her,
drawn by the fame of the saint, and the wide-
spread renown of her powers and her charity.

Various writings are attributed to Brigid, but the
only one that would seem authentic is the Rule that
she composed for her house, which was followed for
many centuries in Ireland. Brigid is certainly to be
reckoned amongst the founders of religious orders.

The mere recital of Brigid 's miracles would occupy
scores of pages. Mercy is the apostolic gift that
she is said to have chosen, and many are the tales
that tell with what tenderness she served, and with
what power she cured, the sick and the diseased,
lepers, lunatics and paralytics. On numberless
occasions, we read, she multiplied food, either for
the entertainment of her guests, or to feed the poor.
We will touch upon some of these miracles later,
but at this point merely relate a story which seems
to reveal some of Brigid 's lovable qualities, her
responsive sensitiveness to the beauty of the world,

36 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

her quick apprehensions, her tender sympathy.
It is told in the third and fourth Lives that :

" One evening Brigid sat with Sister Dara, a holy
nun who was blind, as the sun went down ; and
they talked of the love of Jesus Christ and the joys
of Paradise. Now, their hearts were so full, the
night fled away while they spoke together, and
neither knew that so many hours had sped. Then
the sun came up from the Wicklow Mountains and
the pure white light made the face of earth bright
and gay. Brigid sighed when she saw how lovely
were earth and sky, and while she knew that Dara's
eyes were closed to all this beauty. So she bowed
her head and prayed. She extended her hand and
signed the dark orbs of the gentle sister. Then the
darkness passed away from them, and Dara saw the
golden ball in the East, while all the trees and
flowers glittered with dew in the morning. She
looked a little while, and then turning to the Abbess
said : ' Close my eyes again, dear Mother, for when
the world is so visible to the eyes, God is seen less
clearly in the soul.' So Brigid prayed once more,
and Dara's eyes grew dark."

We seem to come into very close touch with
Brigid the woman here, and it is not so very difficult
to follow her in imagination as she passes in her
white robes through the groves of oak, which at that
time grew abundantly at Kildare.to the wide pasture-
lands, where the nuns, and the abbess also, out of
humility, tended the cattle. These pasture-lands

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 37

were free and open to all, and Brigid is revered for
having established the right of free grazing, and is
regarded as the patroness of commons.

And now we come to the aspect of Brigid under
which she is most universally remembered : Brigid
the Milkmaid, Brigid the Tender of Cattle.

From remotest times the occupation of Ireland
has been largely pastoral ; her wealth has consisted
in flocks and herds. The cow was of old the standard
of value, so that a king's chariot was said to be worth
eighty or ninety cows. The love of the ancient
Irish for the cow is seen in the fact that they
embodied Ireland under the symbol of the cow,
"Silk o' the Kine." Brigid 's association with
milking and tending cattle thus brings her into
close everyday companionship with the Gaelic
people. She still walks with them in the fields,
blessing and protecting the herds ; she is still
called upon to help make the butter come. The
herding blessings and herding chants have only
recently been taken down from the lips of the
peasants, and translated into the English tongue ;
we are only just beginning to realize how the toils
of every day are sanctified to the Gael by invocations
of rare beauty. In the Western Hebrides the flocks
are still counted and dedicated to Bride on her day,
and the shepherd sings to his cattle :

" The protection of God and Columba,
Encompass your coming and going,

And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,
Brigid of the clustering hair, golden-brown."

38 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

In Belgium the peasants still bring rings and other
small articles to be blessed by the priest on St
Bride's Day, in the belief that their sick cattle will
be healed by being touched with them.

The Irish are not the only people who have
regarded the Cow as symbol of an ideal. In many
of the old religions the Cow and the Bull were wor-
shipped as sacred animals, and the association of the
great founders of religion with the cattle of the field
is very curious and significant. Jesus Christ was
born in a cowshed. So widespread an association
must have its roots in some fundamental symbolism
of the race, and, generally speaking, we may say
that the Bull was regarded as the generative, and
the Cow as the sustaining principle, of nature.
Symbolically, then, Milk stood for spiritual suste-
nance.

This symbolism of Milk finds its completest
illustration in the life of Brigid. She was, according
to some accounts, baptized in milk ; she was fed,
so we read, on the milk of a snow-white cow ;
numerous legends tell how by miracle she multiplied
milk ; St Patrick is said to have identified her vision
of rivers of milk with the milk of Christian faith.
Let us dwell for a moment on these points.

As we have already indicated, certain of the Lives
represent Brigid as the daughter of a slave girl,
and Mr Baring Gould translates the legend of her
birth in the following words : — " Brotseach, the
slave girl, was shortly after returning to the house
with a pitcher of fresh warm milk from the cow,

ST. BRIGID OF IRELAND
After Ca>ner

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 39

when she was seized with labour and sank down
on the threshold, and was delivered neither in the
house nor out of the house, and the pitcher of warm
sweet milk, falling, was poured over the little child."
This baptism of milk becomes more significant
when we remember that the mother quality is
Brigid's most important attribute. Baptism by
milk was actually in use in the Celtic Church at a
later date, as is seen from the proceedings of the
Synod of Cashel, 1172. With regard to Brigid's
miraculous powers of multiplying milk for the
entertainment of her guests, we read that on one
occasion the cows gave so much milk that all the
vessels in the place were filled, and the milk over-
flowed into a certain hollow, which was afterwards
known by the name of the Lake of Milk. That these
special miracles were meant to be interpreted
spiritually rather than literally is made clear by the
following story, which is told in Brigid's Life in the
ancient Book of Lismore : —

" While St Patrick preached from a hill, St Brigid
slept. After the sermon St Patrick asked her why
she had fallen asleep. She said : ' 0 Father, forgive
me — I have had a vision. I, your servant, have
beheld four ploughs ploughing the whole of Ireland,
while sowers were scattering seed. This latter
immediately sprang up and began to ripen, when
rivulets of fresh milk filled the furrows, while the
sowers themselves were clothed in white garments.
After that I saw other ploughs, and those who

40 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

ploughed appeared black. They destroyed with
their ploughshares the growing corn and they
sowed tares.' "

St Patrick explains this vision as follows : — We
are the good sowers with the shares of the Four
Gospels, while those rivers, containing the milk of
Christian faith, proceed from our labours. The
ploughers clad in black are the false teachers, who
in aftertimes shall corrupt the True Word.

Nothing could be more explicit ; not only
Brigid's vision finds here its interpretation, but also
Brigid herself, Milkmaid and multiplier of Milk.

Thus Brigid's historical association with cows
and with milking, her symbolic association with
cows and with milking, tend to endear her to the
hearts and souls of the Gaelic people. Sometimes
to the Gaelic peasant and the Gaelic poet, who live
close to the unseen, the symbol and the truth it
stands for seem almost identical, and heavenly
occupations and earthly occupations are blended
into one. So it comes about that many of the
present-day poets picture for us in a kind of glimmer-
ing confusion, Brigid the Milkmaid and Brigid the
Star, the milk of the cow and the milk of heaven,
Ireland and Paradise. Take as an illustration,
Fiona Macleod's lovely " Milking Sian " :

" Give up thy milk to her who calls
Across the low green hills of Heaven
And stream-cool meads of Paradise !

ST BRIG1D OF IRELAND 41

Across the low green hills of Heaven

How sweet to hear the milking call,

The milking call i' the meads of Heaven !

Stream-cool the meads of Paradise,
Across the low green hills of Heaven.

Give up thy milk to her who calls,
Sweet voiced amid the Starry Seven,
Give up thy milk to her who calls ! "

If Milk is thus symbolic of spiritual sustenance,
it is still more symbolic of physical sustenance, and
to Brigid is attributed the supreme mother quality,
and, in some inexplicable way, its supreme fulfilment.
Brigid is regarded not only as the mother of her
people, but as the mother of God, the foster-mother
of Jesus. The vision which partly led to the associ-
tion of Brigid with the Virgin Mary is as follows : —
A certain religious widow asked for the company
of Brigid at a synod to be held on the plain of the
Liffey. A holy man on his way to the synod had
a vision of the Virgin Mary in his sleep. When he
arrived, seeing Brigid, he exclaimed : " This is the
Mary I have seen, for I know with certainty her
appearance." All who were present rendered their
acknowledgment to St Brigid, beholding in her a
type of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and saluting her as
Holy Mary. Therefore this holy virgin was thence-
forth called the Mary of the Gaels and celebrated
as such in many ancient Irish poems. The account
of the synod is retained in an Office of St Brigid,
printed in Paris, 1632.

42 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Brigid was, however, regarded by many ancient
writers as more than " a type of the Blessed Virgin
Mary." Dr Todd states that Brigid is spoken of as
partaking with the Virgin Mary in some mystical
sense of the prerogative of being the Mother of
Jesus. He adds : " The ancient authorities place
her on an equality with the Blessed Virgin, giving
to her also the seemingly incommunicable title of
' Dei Genetrix/ and the still more unusual one,
' Queen of the True God.' " He tells us that St
Columba in a hymn, and St Brogan Cloen in a
poem, write of Brigid as the Mother of our Lord.

No satisfactory key to this exceeding mystery
has yet been offered. Dr Lanigan puts forward as
an explanation that Brigid was called " the Second
Mary, or Mary of the Irish, because she had con-
tributed so essentially to the forming of the children
of God and the brethren of Christ." But many
other saints have laboured as assiduously in God's
fields without being assigned this supreme crown
of womanhood. It is perhaps impossible at this
distance of time to recover the meaning underlying
the identification of this Irish girl with the Maiden
of Bethlehem. It is universally admitted that the
ancient Celts believed in rebirth, at least in the case
of great individuals, if not more generally, vnd
Dr Wentz in his interesting book, " The Fairy
Faith in Celtic Countries," states that certain very
prominent Irishmen now living in Ireland hold that
both Patrick and Columba are to be regarded as
ancient Gaelic heroes who have been reincarnated

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 43

to work for the uplifting of the Gael. It is for our
readers to consider whether the doctrine of rebirth
may not throw some light on the vexed question
of Brigid as the Mary of the Gael.

This doctrine, however, does not explain the many
exquisite legends that tell how, in the fifth century,
Brigid passed through the magic quicken-boughs in
Ireland, and found herself in Palestine ; how she
was serving-girl at the inn, aid- woman to the Virgin
at the Birth, and how she suckled the Holy Babe.
The Brigid legends are not alone in this disregard of
time, for in many of the Franciscan and other stories
the Christ-Child appears ; Brother Conrad receives
from the Virgin the Babe Jesus in his arms, " who,
taking Him with great devotion, embracing and
kissing Him and pressing Him to his breast, was
melted altogether and dissolved in love divine and
consolation unspeakable." Many no doubt will
dismiss such legends as impossible, but there is a
school of philosophers to-day who join with the
mystics of all ages in denying the existence of time.

but we that are not all,
As parts can see but parts, now this, now that,
And live perforce from thought to thought, and make
The act a phantom of succession ; thus
Our weakness somehow shapes the Shadow Time.1'

The reasoning of the metaphysicians on this point
is difficult for the untrained mind to follow ; suffice
it here to note that Professor J. A. Stewart regards
" the sense of timeless being " as one of the two great

44 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

ways whereby " the consciousness comes nearest
to the object of metaphysics — ultimate reality."
The omniscience of God, which seems to involve a
conception on our part of timelessness, led to the
acceptance by many in later days of the difficult
creeds of Predestination and Election, which we shall
have to touch upon in the concluding chapters ;
but timelessness as understood by the Celts, only
meant a bringing nearer to them of wonderful and
lovely things. In the case of Brigid, her connexion
with the Virgin has given her memory a force, a
persistence, a vitality, over which time — whether
it exist or not — has no power.

For centuries the Gaelic legends and folklore con-
cerning Brigid have remained hidden from English-
speaking peoples, locked up in the Gaelic tongue.
But in recent years interpreters have been found, like
Dr Douglas Hyde and Mr Alexander Carmichael,
who have translated many of the folk-songs and made
accessible to us much of the traditional lore. In the
writings of Fiona Macleod many of the legends,
derived orally from the people, are related in radiant
language ; while Lady Gregory in her versions seems
to preserve with delicate fidelity the very accents of
the old peasants from whose lips they were taken
down. And so we know to-day that as the Gaelic
herdsmen call upon Brigid the Milkmaid to bless and
preserve their flocks and herds, so the Gaelic women
call upon Brigid the Foster-mother of Christ to be
with them at the hour of childbirth. When a woman
is in labour, the aid-woman, or the woman next in

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 45

importance, goes to the door of the house and, stand-
ing on the doorstep with her hands on the jambs,
softly beseeches Bride to come :

" ' Bride ! Bride ! come in,
Thy welcome is truly made,
Give thou relief to the woman,
And give the conception of the Trinity:8 "

St Brigid died on ist February 525. She was buried
at Kildare. Up to the twelfth century, and perhaps
later, her nuns kept a fire always burning in her
memory. At the time when Kildare began to suffer
from Danish incursions, Brigid's body was moved to
Down, and interred secretly with the bodies of St
Patrick and St Columba. The place of burial was
revealed to Malachy III., Bishop of Down, in 1185,
and the translation of the bodies to the cathedral at
Down took place with great solemnity on Qth June
1186. The monument was destroyed in Henry
VIII.'s reign and the relics dispersed : the head of
St Brigid is now said to be in the Church of the
Jesuits at Lisbon.

St Brigid's fire was extinguished at the demolition
of the monasteries ; but it burns on in the souls of
men and women to-day. The love of Bride has still
power among the Gaelic people — and to repeat the
genealogy of Bride is to find protection against all
harms :

" The genealogy of the holy maiden Bride,
Radiant flame of gold, noble foster-mother of Christ,
Bride the daughter of Dugall the Brown,
Son of Aodh, son of Art, son of Conn,
Son of Crearar, son of Cis, son of Carmac, son of Carruin.

46

Every day and every night,

That I say the genealogy of Bride,

I shall not be killed, I shall not be harried,

I shall not be put in cell, I shall not be wounded,

Neither shall Christ leave me in forgetfulness.

No fire, no sun, no moon shall burn me,

No lake, no water, nor sea shall drown me,

No arrow of fairy nor dart of fay shall wound me,

And I under the protection of my Holy Mary,

And my gentle foster-mother is my beloved Bride."

Sometimes the Past, like the mists on the Brocken,
increases the stature of its great figures whilst
blurring the outline. Under the gleaming and titanic
shape we have tried — very inadequately — to discern
Brigid the woman. Symbolism alone — the symbol
of Milk — is able to cover her myriad Christian
aspects. She is patroness of pastoral Ireland,
" Silk o' the Kine " ; she is the " Mary of the Gaels,"
foster-nurse of Jesus, presiding over birth ; she is
the Milkmaid of the smooth, white hands, entering
into the daily occupations of the people and touching
them with a divine beauty. She is at one and the
same time the Mother and the unstained Virgin,
combining in her own person the two supreme
qualities of womanhood, purity and maternal
tenderness.

47

Fire

Not only the mists of antiquity bewilder us in our
present brief inquiry which concerns an Ireland
remoter than history ; but the mists of enchantment
— those mists invoked by the Druids to blur the land-
scape— baffle us with a sense of conceptions hidden,
strange, elusive, incomprehensible. We are groping
amid root beliefs ; puzzling over survivals of tree
worship, serpent worship, fire worship ; tracking
out the practice of rites having their origin in Pagan
times.

These root beliefs, this primitive worship, these
Pagan rites have become a part of the cult of Brigid,
and must be touched upon in any study of the saint.

To some extent the pagan element in Brigid ritual
and legend is explained by the fact that the early
Church, for political reasons, approved and even
encouraged the incorporation of Pagan ceremonies
in Christian worship. On days sacred to the Pagans,
the Church established Christian festivals ; thus the
25th of December, sacred to the sun god, became
Christmas Day. The Church tried to replace the
nymphs and deities presiding over wells and groves
by Christian saints and martyrs, and even to this
time many of the saints' festivals on the Continent
bear unmistakable traces of pre-Christian worship
— survivals of the ancient worship of Ceres, and the
still more ancient worship of stones. Though the
Church has tried very hard in recent times to free
Brigid and other saints from the pagan accretions

48 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

that have grown about their names, it has only
partially succeeded.

But the very large admixture of pre-Christian
thought and usage that is associated with Brigid is
no doubt chiefly due to the fact that Brigid the saint
was identified or confused with Brigid the goddess.

Brigid (by some considered the same goddess as
Dana) was the principal goddess of Ireland. She
was the daughter of Dagda, the Irish Jupiter. In
Cormac's glossary, a compilation of the ninth or
tenth century, it is stated that Brigid " was a god-
dess whom poets worshipped, for very great and very
noble was her superintendence, therefore call they
her goddess of poets by this name, whose sisters
were Brigid, woman of smith-work, and Brigid,
woman of healing — namely, goddesses, from whose
names Brigid was with all Irishmen called a goddess."

This conception of the Divine Power in triads
is a very striking feature of Celtic myth ; the three
persons often bearing the same name as in this case,
and being essentially one. The constant invocation
of the Trinity in Gaelic poetry, the devotion to the
Trinity in Gaelic worship, may partly spring from
this primitive root-belief of the race. We see that
this trinity of Brigids presided over the chief arts
and crafts practised in ancient Ireland — poetry,
smith-work and healing — and the Christian Brigid
is the patron saint of art and of beauty, as well as of
fire.

The goddess Brigid was a goddess of fire. And
fire is extraordinarily prominent in Brigid legend

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 49

and Brigid ritual. Owing to the fact that St Patrick
in revising the Brehon Laws expunged all references
to the Druids and Druidic observances, the informa-
tion obtainable on the subject of the ancient Irish
religion is fragmentary. Sun and fire were, however,
undoubtedly objects of worship. We read in a very
early Christian tract preserved in the Book of Leinster
of the great gold-covered idol, the king-idol of
Ireland, called the Cromm Craach. It stood on
Moyslaught, the Plain of Adoration (supposed to be
in the county Cavan), surrounded by twelve lesser
idols ornamented with bronze — clearly, scholars
hold, a symbol of the sun god ruling over the twelve
months. In the Tripartite Life, we read how St
Patrick overthrew these thirteen idols ; on many
other occasions he emphatically condemned sun
worship. The Irish also worshipped with fire
ceremonies the god Bel, identified by some with Baal,
god of the Phoenicians. The ancient Irish had ex-
tensive commerce with these people, and it is very
probable that the worship of Bel was introduced by
them. Again, from the Hill of Tara, sacred fires at
Eastertide announced the annual resurrection of the
sun ; and Druids swore by the sun and the wind.
Dr Wentz regards the " strange cyclopean
circular structure " Dun Angus on Aran-M6r, and
other circular structures in the west of Ireland, as
sun temples. The story of the great Irish hero
Cuchulain contains a strong element of the solar
myth, and the stones and bronzes from sepulchral
mounds that have come down to us from pre-

50 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Christian times bear unmistakable traces of the
symbols of sun and fire worship. From these and
many similar allusions and deductions it may be
concluded that the worship of sun and fire was a
prominent feature of the ancient Irish religion.

And now to indicate the connexion between Brigid
the saint, and Brigid, goddess of fire. St Brigid
is invoked as " Fiery Dart," " Fiery Arrow " — this,
however, is the signification of the name. Her
monastery was called the House of Fire. It is reported
to have been built on the site of a temple resembling
Stonehenge (regarded by Sir John Rhys as a sun
temple to the Celtic god Angus). The seed of St
Brigid 's great foundation sprang from under an oak,
a tree which most authorities hold to have been
sacred to the Irish as well as to the Gaulish Druids.
The great Irish scholar, Whitley Stokes, declares that
one may without much rashness pick out certain of
the incidents of the life of St Brigid as having
" originally belonged to the myth or the ritual of
some goddess of fire."

The bishop who hesitated to consecrate Brigid
saw a column of fire shining above her head while
she prayed in the church, and so was convinced of
the holiness of the maiden. The Magus (so the
Latin Lives translate the word Druid), studying the
stars, saw fire ascending from the house in which
Brigid and her mother slept. When Brigid 's mother
was out milking the cows, the house appeared to be
in flames, but remained unconsumed, and the
child was found slumbering within unharmed.

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 51

A cloth took fire suddenly, and touched the head of
the holy child, doing no injury and remaining
unburned. These and similar legends are to be
found in the six Lives ; and to this day the name
of Brigid is invoked when the peasants are " smoor-
ing the fire " — i.e. covering up a red sod or turf with
ashes at night so that it may be alive in the morning
for relighting :

" I save this fire as Christ saved every one ; Brigid
beneath it, the Son of Mary within it ; let the three
angels having most power in the court of Grace be
keeping this house and the people of this house and
sheltering them until the dawn of day."

There is a spell, too, put upon flame in the beauti-
ful legend that gives to the saint the name of Bride
of Brightness, St Brigid of the Candles. It is told
how, when the Virgin went up to the Temple for
purification, Brigid walked before her with a lighted
candle in each hand. The wind blew strong on the
Temple heights, and yet the flames never wavered.
And so Candlemas Day is sometimes called the Feast
Day of Bride of the Candles. The Pagans were
wont in February to carry candles in the Luper-
calia, and Pope Gclasius substituted the Christian
Candlemas for the Pagan festival.

Not only legend, but history, connects Brigid with
fire. The well-known Giraldus Cambrensis visited
Kildare city in 1185. Foremost among many
miraculous things worthy of record he writes of

52 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

St Brigid's inextinguishable fire. It had been fed by
nuns from St Brigid's time to the twelfth century,
when he wrote, and had been kept perpetually burn-
ing. Twenty nuns watched it in rotation for twenty
nights. On the twenty-first night, having placed
wood on its embers, the last nun said : " O Brigid,
guard thy fire, for this night the duty devolves on
thyself." It would be hard to find in all history a
picture more full of wonder and romance. A circular
hedge of shrubs or thorns surrounded the fire, and no
male person was allowed to enter within that sacred
enclosure. Dimly we strive to conceive the thoughts
of each nun as she watched by that everlasting fire,
its perpetual life leaping upward until strange
shadows sprang about the green walls. Not Brigid
the Milkmaid was her companion in these long
vigils, but Brigid the " Fiery Dart," daughter of the
Irish Jupiter. Such fires were kept burning in Pagan
times in the temples of Jupiter, as well as in the
temples of the Vestal Virgins. But the temple where
the Irish fire flamed for hundreds of years was the vast
temple of the night. Not till the thirteenth century
was St Brigid's fire regarded as a relic of past super-
stition ; and then it was a Norman who failed to
realize its symbolic beauty. In the year 1220,
Henry of London, Archbishop of Dublin, ordered
St Brigid's fire at Kildare to be extinguished. It
was, however, relighted by order of the Bishop of
Kildare, and continued to burn till the dissolution
of the monasteries. Perpetual fires were also kept
burning in other monasteries in Ireland.

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 53

Fire may thus fittingly be regarded as one of
Brigid's symbols, and an emblem of hers is rightly
a perpetual flame. And though many of these
legends and customs must derive from Pagan times,
together with the fire festivals which are celebrated
to this day in Ireland on ist May and 24th June,
yet there is no symbol more spiritual, more appro-
priate to a Christian saint than fire, the great
purifier, " which exists independently of the material
forms in which it abides." The perpetual flame is
the image of immortality, the column of fire, of the
divine outpouring of heaven upon earth.

The ritual which prevails on St Bride's Eve
among the Gaelic peasantry is a most curious blend-
ing of Christian and Pagan ideas. Mr Alexander
Carmichael, in his invaluable " Carmina Gadelica,"
has given an interesting account of these Bride
ceremonies, of which we venture to make a brief
summary. The young girls have a special part to
play, and a special part is assigned to the mothers.
The young girls fashion an ikon of Bride, in the
Islands out of a corn sheaf, in Ireland out of a
churn staff. They decorate the image with shells
and early flowers ; but the significant ornament is
the bright stone or the cross that is put on the breast
of the ikon. In the Islands they use a crystal,
in Ireland, a cross in the shape of the svastika,
delicately woven of straw and rushes. The girls,
clad in white, with their hair down, carry the image
from house to house, singing the song of beauteous
Bride, the virgin of a thousand charms. They

54 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

receive gifts ; afterwards they barricade themselves
in a house to which the young men are only admitted
after much traditional parleying. The night is
passed in merriment, and in the morning the remains
of the feast — practically the whole feast, for it has
been partaken of but sparingly — are distributed to
the poor. The ritual of the mothers is still more
curious. They fashion an oblong basket in the
shape of a cradle, which they call the Bed of Bride.
They also make an image, gaily decorated. " When
all is prepared," says Mr Alexander Carmichael,
" one woman goes to the door of the house and,
standing on the step with her hands on the jambs,
calls softly into the darkness : ' Bride's bed is
ready.' To this a ready woman behind replies :
' Let Bride come in, Bride is welcome.' The woman
at the door again addresses Bride : ' Bride, Bride,
come thou in, thy bed is made. Preserve the house
for the Trinity.' The women then place the ikon
of Bride with great ceremony in the bed they have
so carefully prepared for it."

Various forms of divination are then attempted —
the ashes of the hearth being smoothed and dusted
over carefully. In the early morning the ashes are
scanned for the mark of the wand of Bride or
the footprint of Bride, and there is great joy if the
mark is found, for it signifies increase in family and
in flock and in field. But should there be no trace
of Bride's presence, incense is burned and oblations
offered. The oblation is generally a cockerel buried
alive near the junction of three streams, and the

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 55

incense is burned on the hearth when the family
retires for the night.

To enter into an explanation of these ceremonies
is the work of the student. The making of the
image, the forms of divination, the living sacrifice —
these are clearly Pagan survivals having their roots
in remotest antiquity. But the cross is Christian,
symbol of the Star of Bethlehem, symbol of the
Birth of the Ideal, symbol, as we have already said,
of the First Initiation. Perhaps the most interesting
part of this strange ritual is the very clear differentia-
tion in the ceremonies assigned to the maidens and
the mothers. This marks more plainly than any-
thing else the wide recognition of Bride's twofold
aspect of Virginity and Motherhood.

One purely Pagan rite in connexion with Bride
survived until within recent times. A propitiatory
hymn used to be sung to the serpent on Bride's Day,
when it was supposed to emerge from its hollow in
the hills. Only one verse of the hymn survives,
which varies in varying localities :

" On the day of Bride of the white hills.
The noble queen (serpent) will come from the knoll,
I will not molest the noble queen,
Nor will the noble queen molest me.'!

A great stream of root beliefs and root traditions
has thus come down to us on the tide of St Brigid's
popularity. In the foregoing chapter we have
endeavoured to indicate some reasons for the strong
spiritual appeal that Brigid makes to the Irish

56 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

people ; it is seen now that she also embodies some
of the most ancient ideals of the race, and is linked
with remotest ancestral memory. For no other
woman who has ever lived, except the Virgin Mary
herself, has so much been claimed by those who
have loved her. No other woman, except the
Virgin Mary herself, has been endowed to the same
extent with the qualities symbolized by Milk and
Fire, the Mother quality of love, and the Virgin
quality of purity.

And it is not altogether strange that some of the
mystics of to-day, brooding upon this woman and
upon womanhood, should connect Brigid in their
hearts with the thought of a new birth, and dream
of a regeneration that may come, perhaps, through
her who made the lowliest toil into a divine message.

" I believe that we are close upon a great and deep
spiritual change," writes Fiona Macleod, " I believe
a new redemption is even now conceived of the
Divine Spirit in the human heart, that is itself as
a woman, broken in dreams and yet sustained in
faith, patient, long-suffering, looking towards home.
I believe that though the reign of peace may be yet
a long way off ... it is drawing near ; and that
who shall save us anew shall come divinely as a
woman, to save as Christ saved, but not, as He did,
to bring with her a sword. But whether this
divine woman, this Mary of so many passionate
hopes and dreams, is to come through mortal birth,
or as an immortal breathing upon our souls, none
can yet know. . . . And since then I have learned,

ST BRIGID OF IRELAND 57

and do see, that not only prophecies and hopes,
and desires unclothed yet in word or thought, fore-
tell her coming, but already a multitude of spirits
are in the gardens of the soul, and are sowing seed,
and calling upon the wind of the south ; and that
everywhere are watching eyes and uplifted hands,
and signs which cannot be mistaken, in many lands,
in many peoples, in many minds ; and in the heaven
itself that the soul sees, the surpassing signature."

H^LOISE

The Intellectual Background

FOR our background in this drama we have
neither the fierce gold of the desert nor the
lush green of Irish meadows ; neither the terrible
silence of the one, nor the cool peace of the other.
Mediaeval Paris in all the motley exuberance of the
twelfth century rises to form our mise en scene.

Asceticism, penance, forgiveness won after cruel
suffering : such was the aspect of Christianity that
occupied our first chapters. The giving of spiritual
blessings and the illumination of common labour
by association with the saints of God : such was
the aspect of Christianity that occupied our next
chapters. The aspect of Christianity that we have
to deal with now is its intellectual aspect ; theology,
and not mysticism, is our objective ; reason, and
not unquestioning faith, is to be our guide. We are
in the clash of controversy, of logic, of dialectic,
of rhetoric ; we have entered upon that age when
even the common man felt a more poignant interest
in the solution of a metaphysical problem than in the
rumours of wars or the deaths of kings, when the
enthusiasm for disputations drew students by their
thousands from all parts of the civilized world to
centres of learning, and when the reputation of

58

HfeLOl'SE 59

teachers was made and lost solely by their skill
in the subtleties of argument.

The story of Abelard and Heloise is closely
connected with the intellectual renascence of the
twelfth century. Their story has a significance
beyond its romance and its tragedy. The import-
ance of both of the lovers in the history of the human
mind is no less assured than their importance in the
history of human emotion. Venerated throughout
the ages for the greatness of their love, they deserve
to be equally venerated for the greatness of their
intelligence ; acclaimed by all poets as exponents
of pure passion, they must be equally acclaimed by
all students as exponents of pure reason. Abelard
is accounted not only the greatest intellect of the
Middle Ages, but, by some, one of the greatest
intellects of all time : Heloi'se is eminent among the
learned women of the past, and stands out not
only by her daring in speculation, but by her sound
common-sense. To appreciate rightly the coil in
which these two noble souls were involved, we must
touch briefly on the condition of human thought
in the times when they lived.

An additional interest is imported to this inquiry
by the fact that both Abelard and Heloise are
peculiarly modern in view. The setting of their
story is mediaeval ; the ideas that animate it might
belong to to-day. We find a mediaeval abbess
seriously questioning whether a great human love
should not have precedence over love for God,
and pleading that nuns should not be subjected to

60 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

severer abstinences than devout lay people. We
find a mediaeval abbot claiming that the heathen
philosophers had received a certain measure of
divine revelation, undermining the authority of
the Church Fathers, and introducing dialectic into
theology. Not only is the story of Abelard and
Heloise within reach of our comprehension and
sympathy on the emotional side, it is within reach
of our comprehension and sympathy on the intel-
lectual side also. We do not tread in this chapter
among visions and miracles and wonders, but on the
solid, ordinary ground of every day.

The twelfth century was a period of extraordinary
intellectual activity. Its renascence was as real, if
never as widely recognized, as the" renascence of
the sixteenth century. It is true that the Greeks,
fleeing from Constantinople after its fall in 1453,
established a more complete and widespread know-
ledge of the classical writers than was within the reach
of the twelfth century ; but in the twelfth century,
chiefly through Arab sources, Plato and Aristotle
began to be more thoroughly known, and the early
Crusades furnished that stimulus of new experience
which the adventurers of Tudor times found in the
exploration of unknown lands and seas.

The renascence of the sixteenth century was an
awakening to the beauty of the outer world, and
a quickening of the life of the inner world. But
these two apprehensions proceeded on divergent
lines and proved antagonistic. An intense worship
of beauty and joy ran counter to an iconoclastic

H£LOISE 61

Puritan spirit that held beauty and joy as children
of the devil. The twelfth century renascence
included two equally opposed elements — the adora-
tion of pure reason, and an effort after spiritual
purification that manifested itself in a striking
revival of the monastic ideal. Abelard exhibited
in his own character a like contradiction of parts.
One of the greatest exponents of pure reason the
world has ever known, he is remembered rather
as the lover of Heloiise than as a philosopher
anticipating Descartes, as a theologian anticipating
Luther.

Twelfth-century thought is marked by certain
unique characteristics. In no other century did the
mere Grammatical Abstract awaken such fervour
of enthusiasm. No other century has displayed so
keen a delight in studies that had no apparent
bearing on practical life. No other century has
explored with such whole-hearted rapture the
bypaths of logic and dialectics. We are apt to
think that these disputations were a mere chopping
of logic, subtleties of word-spinning, tortuosities
of language, arid and dry and profitless beyond
measure. We cannot understand how arguments
about Universals (which may be roughly interpreted
as Abstract Terms or Ideas) should have turned
Europe into a vast schoolhouse and filled its roads
with travelling scholars ready to face the severest
hardships for the sake of acquiring the knowledge
of grammar, logic and dialectics. We watch with
bewilderment the fierce partisanship that alike

marked the adherents of the Realist philosophy,
which held that Universals were realities, and the
adherents of the Nominalist philosophy, which held
that Universals were only names. And yet it is
impossible to believe that a movement marked by so
much energy, vigour and brilliance had not its roots
deep down in vital human needs and activities.

And, as a matter of fact, the terms Nominalist
and Realist roughly cover two schools of thought
which have existed and been in conflict since man
began to think at all — two schools of thought which
touch man's life at almost every point. Reason
and Faith, Religion and Science, Induction and
Deduction, Synthesis and Analysis, Plato and
Aristotle, those who uphold belief in the Unseen
and those who rely upon the evidence of the senses —
between these contending factions warfare has been,
and is, unceasing. The Nominalists, roughly speak-
ing, belonged to the Deductive School : they were
on the side of Reason, Science, Aristotle ; they tested
truth by the evidence of the senses. The Realists
belonged to the Inductive School, the Synthetic
School ; Plato was their master ; Ideas were the
supreme reality. Of course each army has known
innumerable subdivisions, and desertions from one
camp to the other have been frequent and discon-
certing. To-day the manoeuvres are so intricate
that it is almost impossible to follow them. But in
times of less mental complexity the skirmishes are
more clearly visible, the issues are simpler, and the
results (to the combatants at least) more decisive.

H6LOISE 63

The leaders of either party stand out with more
flashing impressiveness ; sometimes, indeed, they
are champions who contend in single combat before
the eyes of the world. The twelfth century presents
the thrilling spectacle of two such famous champions
matched one against the other, and shows us an
amazing and unaccountable surrender which it
taxes all the resources of psychology to explain.

Abelard stood forth as the champion of Pure
Reason ; St Bernard of Clairvaux stood forth the
champion of Unquestioning Faith. At the Council
of Sens in the year 1141, before a great conclave
of nobles and ecclesiastics, including the French
King, Louis VII., the two great opponents were set
to wrestle for supremacy in a battle of tongues.

But before we come to this memorable event, let
us glance briefly at Abelard's intellectual position.
We need not enter here into Abelard's controversies
with both Nominalists and Realists, nor tell of his
duels with, and victories over, the chief exponents
of both schools. His position was, that Universals
have actual existence, but in the mind only, and
possess no reality outside. In modern times this
school of thought is known as Conceptualism, but
in the Middle Ages it was always looked upon as
a form of Nominalism, and was indeed a return
to the Aristotelian philosophy. These dialectical
triumphs, however, concern themselves with a some-
what local form of a universal question ; and we
would rather indicate Abelard's originality and
daring of thought along broader lines.

64 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

The scientific attitude of his mind is shown in his
dictum : By doubting we are led to inquire ; by
inquiry we perceive the truth. The supreme place
given to reason in his philosophy is indicated by this
sentence extracted from a book of his on the Trinity :
Doctrine is not to be believed because God has said it,
but because we are convinced by reason that it is so.
In this book he applies dialectics to theology, and
immediately comes into conflict with orthodox
opinion. Abelard was accused of Tri -theism, an
accusation constantly levelled against the Nomina-
lists, who, as they only attributed existence to
individuals, annulled that of the Three Persons, or
realized them as three individual essences, which
was to admit three gods. In 1121 Abelard was
condemned to burn publicly his book on the Trinity
and to recite aloud the Athanasian Creed. This
sentence was, however, imposed upon him, not for
heresy, but because the book had been issued without
authorization.

Abelard 's attack upon authority is best seen in
that amazing work of his, " Sic et Non." This work,
which we still possess, is arranged in three parallel
columns. In the first column are 158 questions on
points of dogma ; in the other two columns are
answers extracted from the works of the Church
Fathers, mutually contradictory : in the one column
an affirmative, in the other a negative answer being
given ! No more effective method could have been
devised for subverting the undue influence of tradi-
tion, but he was a bold man who dared the task, for

HELOISE 65

the writings of the Fathers were regarded by many
as little less sacred than the Scriptures themselves.
Abelard acknowledged the supreme authority of the
Bible, but he regarded human reason as sufficient
for its interpretation. While he deprecated unques-
tioning reverence being paid to writings not in the
Scripture, he admitted a divine inspiration in all
noble thought, Christian or pre-Christian. Again, his
views of heaven and hell did not conform with the
mediaeval teaching of the Church. Heaven, he held
to be an approach to God, who is the supreme Good,
and hell to be isolation from Him. When we con-
sider the time in which Abelard lived and wrote, we
are amazed at the intellect that could forge so far
ahead of accepted opinion.

It is obvious at once that his arguments were
bound sooner or later to come into conflict with the
doctrines of the mediaeval Church. For Abelard
did more than perfect a philosophy ; he did more than
apply dialectics to theology and found Scholastic-
ism ; his importance rests not only on his greatness
as a thinker, but on his greatness as a teacher. He
had all the gifts of the orator : fascination of person-
ality, charm and richness of voice, brilliance and
colour of language. Whatever subject he touched
became alive ; and he made the most difficult and
abstruse themes lucid and convincing. Students
flocked to his lectures with an enthusiasm almost
unparalleled in history : he awoke in them a burning
passion for inquiry, a fierce thirst for knowledge, so
that great crowds of his disciples followed him even

66 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

into the wilderness, and built mud-huts, and endured
every kind of hardship gladly, that they might
enjoy the teaching of their beloved master.

Although Abelard lived before the time of uni-
versities we may with justice attribute the university
movement indirectly to him. The vast bodies of
students he attracted to Paris — five thousand, some
say — necessitated the multiplication and organiza-
tion of masters ; the great cathedral school in which
he taught, developed finally into the most famous
of mediaeval universities, the University of Paris.
It seems indeed almost impossible to reckon up the
debt that learning owes to Abelard 's genius.

Abelard held himself always a true son of the
Church, and never appears to have doubted any of
its dogmas ; but his attitude of mind, his method of
approaching religious problems, the tone and spirit
of his teaching, were aggressively at variance with
the whole body of ecclesiastical tradition and usage.
Further, he offended, with debonair recklessness,
susceptibilities which had grown to be almost
religious — as when he tried to convince his fellow-
monks of St Denis on the authority of the Venerable
Bede that Dionysius the Areopagite (Denis) could not
possibly have suffered martyrdom in Paris, as they
fondly believed, nor have been the founder of their
house. He made enemies apart from his views by
his gay and arrogant self-confidence ; and it is with
little surprise that we find him arraigned by St
Bernard of Clairvaux, not only for being a heretic,
but for preaching all the great historical heresies that

HELOISE 67

had torn the Church from earliest times. At the
Synod of 1141 Abelard was accused of denying the
Trinity with Arius, of destroying the Incarnation
with Nestorius, of taking away the necessity of Grace
with Pelagius ; of having boasted that he was
ignorant of nothing ; of being never willing to say of
anything, Nescio, I do not know it ; of pretending to
expound inexplicable things, to comprehend incom-
prehensible mysteries, and to give reasons for what
is above reason.

St Bernard, the kuthor of the accusation, and
Abelard, are the two most remarkable figures of the
twelfth century. Bernard stands for authority, for
orthodox Christianity, but for Christianity reformed,
purged, purified by the fire. Preacher of the
Second Crusade, adviser of popes and kings, he threw
himself with fierce energy into the monastic revival,
sought unceasingly to recruit the soldiers of the
Church, and waged constant warfare against those
whom he considered its enemies . No greater contrast
to Abelard can be imagined than this ascetic, this
mystic, this seer of visions. Bernard is an example
of that type of character which, drawing its strength
from the spiritual exercise of meditation and prayer
and penance, becomes a powerful force in the world
of men and affairs. That Bernard was a man of
untiring zeal and high purpose no one will deny ;
but even his most ardent defenders admit that he
had the defects of his qualities — that he showed
himself on occasion narrow and limited. Indeed,
Dr Hastings Rashdall, in his admirable " Universities

68 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

of Europe," goes so far as to assert that Abelard was
as much done to death by Bernard as if he had died
at the stake. Yet Bernard, at whose voice Europe
trembled — Bernard, whose sweet-tongued eloquence
had given him the title of the " Mellifluous Doctor "
— shrank as long as he could from the personal
encounter which Abelard sought. He knew himself
no match for Abelard's burning oratory, for his swift
and flashing intellect. " I am a child to him," he is
reported to have said. And so when at last he was
forced to enter the lists for single combat, he invoked
against Abelard's pure reason all the powers of
emotion, of beauty, of association, of appeal to the
hidden and unseen. He called the whole gorgeous
ritual of the Church to his aid, and on the day before
the conclave he performed at the cathedral of Sens
the magnificent ceremony of blessing the relics.
This was perhaps legitimate warfare ; but there are
some who accuse Bernard of resorting to expedients
not so legitimate — of packing the cathedral, for
instance, with adherents of his own.

Behold, then, the two champions in battle array,
France and intellectual Europe looking on. " Faith
precedes Reason " is the device of the one side.
" Reason precedes Faith " is the device of the other.

The moment had come for Abelard to speak.
The whole vast assembly was on the tiptoe of expec-
tation. To the amazement of everybody, Abelard
exclaimed : " I refuse to be judged like a criminal !
I appeal to Rome ! " and without another word he
turned on his heel and left the conclave.

HELOISE 69

It is impossible to account for this action. He may
have felt himself condemned before he had spoken.
Or his courage, tried by many adversities and failures,
may have deserted him. He may have experienced
one of those sudden alterations of mood to which,
throughout his career, he was liable. His ardent
Celtic temperament — he was a Breton — was apt to
plunge him from the height of self-confidence into
the abyss of despair. At critical moments he,
champion of Reason, yielded to sudden impulses,
which were his undoing. It is a tragical ending
of this historic combat — this ignominious defeat
and flight of one of the combatants. For Bernard
had the ear of the Pope, and Innocent II. imposed
perpetual silence on Abelard as a heretic, and ordered
him to be imprisoned. The sentence was afterwards
rescinded, but Abelard never recovered from the
blow.

So, in the story of Abelard 's career, we see his
titanic mind, first in its triumphant struggle, and
then in its vain struggle against the spirit of his time.
So in his love story we see his titanic personality in
tragic and in vain struggle against circumstances of
his own making. Supremely great as a thinker,
supremely devoted as a lover, fatality seems to dog
his every action. The sufferings of Heloi'se will
claim our chief attention in the following pages, but
we may here ask one moment's sympathy for the
sufferings of Abelard. The pain borne by Heloi'se
was caused in the main by her great and enduring
love, by the anguish of separation ; but it was pain

70 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

on the heroic scale that almost touched joy. Abelard
had to bear ignominious torment, the shame of
Fulbert's base revenge, the petty persecution of the
ignorant and the intolerant, the treachery and
brutality of his own monks who sought his life,
and finally, in his closing days, miserable defeat and
excommunication. Yet through all the long years
of trouble and turmoil, his intellect burned strong
and clear, and Abelard 's work stands to-day a high
landmark in the history of the mind of man.

The Love Story

All the stories that have captured the imagination
of men are preserved through the centuries by some
salt of greatness. More especially, perhaps, is this
salt of greatness needed to keep strong and pure
in the memory of the world the love tragedies
of history. Sublimity of soul is the mark of the
great lovers whose love has dominated time : their
love is transfigured by sacrifice and suffering ;
hell itself cannot stand against its heroism. Ishtar
dares the appalling dangers of the Babylonian under-
world, in search of her beloved ; Orpheus rescues
Eurydice from the Kingdom of the Shades. Even
when lovers are of a less transcendent courage, their
passion, or, it may be, their punishment, is on a
noble scale. The magic philtre sets Tristran and
Iseult in splendid isolation, and, drifting in the vast
circles of Hades, Paolo and Francesca expiate end-
lessly their brief moment of bliss.

HELOISE 71

In the old religions, in ancient epic and romance,
in the imagination of poets, the love of man and
woman has been conceived in its perfect radiance.
Great love stories that have their root in history are
naturally more rare. For myth casts its subject
in titanic proportions, and romance invests its theme
with gorgeous trappings of colour and light, and
poetry purges its material of all dross, whereas sober
fact rejects towering height and extraneous glamour.
Documentary evidence shows men and women in
their everyday moods and in their moments of
weakness, and therefore historical love stories must
possess strong and persistent elements if they are
to enter into the treasured memories of the race,
and take their place beside the great dreams and
ideals of all time.

Such elements persist in the story of Abelard and
Heloi'se, and the passage of centuries has scarcely
dimmed its emotion. It pulses with a living human-
ity, derived as it is from contemporary annals and
from the letters of the lovers themselves. Yet so
ingenious are the devices, so apt the catastrophe,
that we seem sometimes to be dealing rather with
a carefully planned structure of the imagination
than with the rude facts of life ; we appear to be
treading the paths of romantic tragedy rather than
following an actual record of experience. Indeed,
the authenticity of the letters of the lovers has been
tentatively questioned, and it is true that the oldest
manuscript is dated one hundred years after the death
of Heloi'se ; but all competent authorities are agreed

72 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

that the letters (with a few possible interpolations)
were actually written by Abelard and Heloi'se, and
it is supposed that the preliminary letter, equally
genuine, which gave rise to the correspondence, was
intended primarily for public circulation.

Many factors contribute to the abiding lure of
this story. Simply as a story, it abounds in dramatic
surprise, in plot and counterplot. It includes the
idyll and the tragedy. It plumbs the deeps of
emotion, and the vexed problems of philosophy have
their place in it. But. numerous love stories exhibit
some at least of these features. What lifts the story
of Abelard and Heloise above other stories is the
extraordinary interest of the characters of the two
lovers.

Abelard was best loved in his lifetime — loved,
some French critics are inclined to think, as few men
have ever been loved before. But Heloi'se has perhaps
been best loved since she was dead : loved by genera-
tions of men who have found in her passion strong
as a flame, in her self-abandonment which yet never
loses its dignity, in her selflessness which involves
no blind surrender, the woman of their soul's ideal.
It is unnecessary to remind the reader how the cult
of Heloise has flourished from that time to this.
The Letters were well known in the Middle Ages, one
of the authors of the " Romaunt of the Rose "
having made a translation of them from the original
Latin into French ; and we all remember how Pope
slightly distorted the perspective of the story to
bring it within the horizon of his century. Heloi'se

HELOISE 73

makes appeal to-day chiefly by her courage, which
disdained repentance and scorned remorse — and by
that quality in her love which lifted it high above the
senses. But if to-day we are able to render He"loi'se
her full meed, we are better constituted to follow
with understanding and with sympathy the intricate
problems and dire tragedies that beset Abelard.
Without a due realization of Abelard's genius, the
story loses half its poignancy and meaning.

We take it up in the year 1118, when Abelard was
thirty-nine years old, and at the very height of his
fame and powers. We are in the heart of mediaeval
Paris.

Imagine for a moment the teeming life under the
shadow of old Notre Dame, in the dim grey of the
cloisters and the parti-coloured streets ! At five or
six o'clock each morning, in fresh summer or cold
winter dawn, the great cathedral bell rang out the
summons to work ; and from all the tortuous lanes,
the students, including men from England, Germany,
Poland, Italy, Spain, passed in their hundreds, in
their thousands, to the great lecture hall. There
they sat themselves on the floor strewn with hay or
straw and for six or seven hours listened to the
teachers, and made notes of the lectures upon waxed
tablets. Then the streets, crowded already with
canons, monks, priests, clerks of every degree, with
nobles and citizens and craftsmen, each in distinctive
dress, grew more dense as the horde of students
poured into them. One striking figure drew all
eyes — a man, handsome, still in the prime of life,

74 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

with fine brow and noble look, grave and yet careful
in his dress, a magnetic personality that would have
attracted attention even had his name and fame been
unknown. But his name and fame were bruited
even to the remote corners of the civilized world,
for this was the great Abelard, the principal of the
cathedral school, the best -beloved master in Paris,
the most illustrious master in Europe. By his own
unaided efforts he had conquered this splendid posi-
tion ; by arduous labour, unmatched eloquence
and unrivalled learning he had won his way from
triumph to triumph. He stood now on the apex of
his renown — of great wealth, for his instruction was
not given gratuitously — adored by his disciples,
honoured and feared by the doctors of all Christen-
dom. The eldest son of a noble of Brittany, he had
relinquished his patrimony that he might pursue
knowledge, and, as was the custom of those days,
he had wandered from school to school in search
of instruction. Dialectics were ever his favourite
study. " I went," he tells us, " wherever I heard
that this art was held in honour." He had to fight
for his success step by step against strenuous opposi-
tion, but he was sustained and inspired by the
consciousness within himself of unique powers. And
now, as he passed along the streets of Paris, all the
people turned to look after him ; women drew aside
the curtains of their narrow windows to see him go by.
" Was there a king, a philosopher whose fame could
equal yours ? " wrote He"loise of this time. " What
country, what city, what village was not stirred by

HELOlSE 75

the desire to see you ? If you walked abroad, who
did not hasten forth to catch a glimpse of you ? "

They still point to a house in the environs of
Notre Dame that tradition assigns to the Canon
Fulbert. It is the first house to the left entering the
Rue des Chantres : the walls have been entirely
rebuilt, but it is possible that the interior is old.
Here, if we accept this tradition, dwelt Heloi'se with
her uncle, the Canon. She was at this time seventeen
or eighteen years old, and already famous for her
attainments. Abelard, writing from his monastery
twelve years after the events, describes her beauty in
cautious terms, but gives her knowledge heart whole
praise. " In appearance she was not amongst the
least attractive," he says, " in learning she was
amongst the most distinguished." Peter the Vener-
able, Abbot of Cluny, wrote to her in later years : " In
truth my affection for you is not of recent growth,
but of long standing. I had hardly passed the bounds
of youth when the repute, if not yet of your religious
fervour, at least of your becoming and praiseworthy
studies, reached my ears. I remembered hearing
at that time of a woman who, though still involved
in the toils of the world, devoted herself to letters and
the pursuit of wisdom, which is a rare occurrence."
He goes on : "In study you not only outstripped
all women, but there were few men whom you did not
surpass." It is probable that Heloiise knew Greek
and Hebrew, and, of course, Latin before she met
Abelard ; he taught her, in addition, dialectics,
theology and ethics.

76 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Learning in women was not unusual in the twelfth
century. A little before the time of Heloise there
had been a school for women in Paris, conducted by
the wife and daughters of the famous master, Mane-
gold of Alsace — women, we read, who were well
versed in Scripture, and most distinguished in
philosophy. The names of many famous women
scholars of that period have come down to us — of
abbesses who wrote Latin poems, who cultivated
grammar and philosophy, who compiled encyclopae-
dias of the knowledge of the age. Not only did
high dignitaries of the Church commend learning
in women, but it was even an attraction in the eyes
of the lover. The love that Heloiise had for study,
Abelard tells us, created another sweet bond between
them. " The pen is bolder than the lips," he writes.

The letters of Abelard and Helolse contain not
only the fullest account of their love story, but are
our surest key to the character of the lovers them-
selves. They hold a unique position among the
great love letters of the world ; for they were written
twelve years after the abbey gates had shut each
of them away from human love — written with the
sure knowledge that human love was denied them for
ever. Abelard and Heloi'se had met in the interval,
husband and wife, grave nun and severe abbot ;
but no flash of feeling, no sudden emotion had broken
the sober decorum of their attitude, and but for the
happy accident of the correspondence, their souls
would have remained impenetrably sealed to each
other, and to us.

HELOISE 77

The correspondence began in somewhat remarkable
fashion. Abelard, Abbot of St Gildas in Brittany,
addressed to a friend a letter entitled " History of my
Calamities." This letter, which is a kind of Apologia
pro Vita Sua, was intended, it is believed, for public
circulation. It fell into the hands of H61o'ise, and
impelled her to those replies which have moved the
hearts of generations of men and women. Abelard;
in the " History of my Calamities," looks back upon
the incidents of his love through long years of unpre-
cedented trial and suffering. His after-experiences
have coloured the narrative, he writes when the
flame of passion has died out. His ecclesiastical
surroundings invest certain of his past failings with
a perhaps exaggerated importance ; he speaks of the
fever of pride and luxury that devoured him — sins
peculiarly obnoxious to the monastic mind. He is
also careful to tell us that the baser pleasures of the
senses had no attraction for him, and that his arduous
labours in the preparation of his lectures left him no
time to cultivate the society of noble ladies, nor
indeed had he many acquaintances, even among the
bourgeoisie. But he seems entirely unaware of the
crime with which modern criticism reproaches him
— the burial of Heloise, young, ardent, joyous, wholly
unsuited to the religious life, in the gloom of a cloister.

This first letter of Abelard's is in truth a human
document, revealing alike the strength and the weak-
ness of the writer. We have here no hero of romance,
but a very man, miserable, tormented, unhappy,
persecuted and pursued.

78 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

There lived in Paris — so Abelard's narrative begins
— a young girl named Heloise, niece of a canon called
Fulbert, who in his tender love for her had neglected
nothing that would advance her education. The
very rarity of learning in women, Abelard goes on,
gave an additional charm to this young girl, whose
reputation was already spread throughout the whole
kingdom. Abelard tells us that from the first he
felt certain of winning the love of H61oi'se. He was
not unaware of the magic and charm of his own
personality, which had drawn five thousand devoted
disciples to Paris ; he knew that his fame was great
enough to dazzle the eyes of any woman. So, in
pursuit of his object, Abelard proposed to take rooms
in Fulbert 's house, on pretext of its nearness to the
school. Fulbert agreed with joy. Not only was
he tempted by his love of money, but his pride saw
here an unlooked-for opportunity of forwarding his
niece's intellectual progress. Fulbert begged Abelard
to devote every moment of his leisure to the educa-
tion of H61o'ise, night as well as day ; and, if he found
her in fault, not to hesitate to punish her, even by
blows. No suspicion crossed the Canon's mind.
His niece he considered no more than a child, and
Abelard was a great philosopher of unblemished
reputation. And so, under the pretext of study,
says Abelard, " we gave ourselves up wholly to love ;
the device of lessons procured for us that mysterious
intercourse which love demands. The books were
open, but there were more words of love than of
philosophy, more kisses than explanations ; we looked

HELOISE 79

more often into each other's eyes than upon
the text. In our ardour we passed through all the
phases of love ; we exhausted every refinement of
passion."

Abelard's love for Heloise at this moment domin-
ated his whole existence. The pursuit of knowledge
and ambition, which had been the driving forces of
his life, were inoperative ; books, lectures, pupils,
were neglected. His discourses were delivered with
indifference, and for his subject-matter he drew upon
memory. A whole new side of his nature developed.
The thinker became the artist, the poet, the musician,
the creator of beautiful things. Where his philosophy
failed to penetrate, his love songs entered, and
" Abelard " and " He"loi'se " were on the lips of every
villager. " Every street, every house," says
Helo'ise, "resounded with my name." These verses
of tender grace, this music of sweetest melody, have
gone on the wind. Nevertheless, Abelard may be
claimed as the first French poet to use the vernacular
for his verse.

Months passed : Abelard's pupils watched with
consternation the change that had come over their
master. All the world had guessed the secret before
any suspicion crossed Fulbert's mind. But at last
he, too, was undeceived, and Abelard left the house,
overcome with remorse, agonized by the separation,
heartbroken for the fate of Heloi'se. The parting
of the lovers, however, only increased their passion,
and after a little while Heloiise wrote in a transport
of joy to tell Abelard she was about to become a

8o WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

mother. So one night, when Fulbert was away,
Abelard took H61oi'se, disguised as a nun, to his sister
in Brittany, where she bore a son, whom she called
Astrolabe.

Her flight made Fulbert furious with rage and grief,
and Abelard, touched by the violence of the Canon's
sorrow, and wishing also to atone for his treachery,
promised to marry Heloise on condition that the
marriage should be kept a secret. Abelard was
probably a canon of Notre Dame, but marriage was
at this time not thought unbecoming in the lower
clergy. Indeed, the Church Councils of 1102, 1107
and 1119 did not forbid the marriage of priests, nor
even of bishops. Nevertheless, marriage would
unfailingly prove a barrier to high ecclesiastical
preferment, and, from this point of view, might ruin
Abelard 's career. This at least was the opinion held
by Heloise. She opposed the plan of marriage with
all the force of her nature, with a tenacity and a
courage amazing in one of her years. " How the
Church would frown on such a marriage ! " Abelard
reports her to have said. " What tears it would cost
philosophy ! How deplorable it would be to see a man
whom nature had created for the whole world,
bound to one woman and bent under a dishonour-
able yoke ! " She enforced her argument — so Abelard
tells us — with long quotations from the apostles
and the fathers, with many instances from the
classics, and learned disquisitions, so that we suspect
that Abelard allowed himself to enlarge on her original
remarks : but even he perceived the thought that

HELOISE Si

was behind her words — the fear that she would be
a burden to him, a hindance to his work — her belief
that the cares of a household were incompatible with
a complete devotion to philosophy. Abelard was
riot to be moved, and they returned to Paris. After
watching together in the church one night in prayer,
they were secretly married in the presence of Fulbert
and a few friends. Fulbert, however, still animated
by a desire for revenge, broke his vow and made
public the marriage. Heloise, whose only thought
was to protect Abelard 's reputation, swore that no
statement could be more false. Fulbert, exasper-
ated, began to treat his niece with cruelty, so Abelard,
for her better protection, moved her to the convent of
Argenteuil, near Paris, where she had been educated.
The Canon, imagining by this that Abelard wished to
put away Heloise, planned a frightful revenge, which
was carried out by some hirelings who entered
Abelard 's chamber at night.

Soon the whole of Paris knew of Abelard 's ignominy,
and the noisy compassion and pity of disciples and
friends were more unbearable to Abelard than the
pain of the wound. He saw himself pointed at by the
finger of scorn, his career ruined, his enemies trium-
phant. There seemed to him in his agony no refuge
but the cloister, and driven thither, as he tells us,
rather by shame than vocation, he decided to become
a monk at the Abbey of St Denis. But before he
accomplished his vows he insisted on Heloise taking
the veil at the convent of Argenteuil. She, who
like himself had no vocation for the religious life,

82 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

submitted without hesitation to his desire. " It was
your will, not devotion, that forced me, young as I
was, into the austerities of the convent," she wrote.
" At your command, I would have preceded you or
followed you into the burning abyss. My soul was
no longer mine, but yours."

It is from Abelard's own pen that we gain the
dramatic account of her profession. Surely a scene
more human, less veiled even by a semblance of
reverence for the step to be taken, has seldom been
enacted before the altar. There was no moment's
pretence that any thought but the thought of Abelard
was in her mind. Friends crowded round her,
trying to dissuade her, reminding her of her youth,
of the unbearable austerities to which she was con-
demning herself. She replied through tears and sobs
in the words of Cornelia in Lucan : " O noble spouse,
whose bed I was not worthy to share ! Why should
Fate, which has pursued me, oppress thee also ?
Unhappy that I am, to have formed ties that rendered
thee miserable ! Receive this my death, which I
offer voluntarily in expiation of my fault ! " Saying
these words she approached the altar, received the
veil from the hands of the bishop and pronounced
publicly the irrevocable vows.

We cannot here follow in detail the numerous
calamities recounted by Abelard between the year
1120, when he became a monk, and the year 1132,
when he wrote his letter to a friend. He came into
almost immediate conflict with his superiors by his
violent protest against the disorderly life of the

HELOISE 83

monastery. In 1121 he was condemned by the Council
of Soissons, as we have already stated, to burn
publicly his book on the Trinity. In 1122 he obtained
permission to lead a regular life in the character of a
hermit. He went to Champagne, and in a meadow
beside the River Arduzon he built for himself and
a disciple two huts and a small oratory, fashioned
from the branches of trees, and reeds from the river,
and daubed over with mud and turf. Then followed
a scene unique in the history of education. Abelard
was compelled by poverty to open school. No
sooner was it known that the master was again
teaching than scholars from all parts of the country
flocked to the valley, abandoning, as Abelard relates,
towns and castles to live in a desert, leaving vast
domains for little huts constructed with their own
hands, delicate foods for roots and herbs and coarse
bread, soft beds for straw or moss, tables for mounds
of turf. They built a new oratory of wood and stone,
which Abelard dedicated first to the Holy Trinity,
and then to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete or Com-
forter. His renown, he tells us, was again spread
through all the world, and, as a consequence, his
enemies redoubled their efforts against him. Feeling
the nets coiling about him once more, afraid of being
accused of heresy, he accepted in a kind of panic the
abbacy of St Gildas in Brittany and for twelve years
waged unceasing and vain warfare against a horde of
unruly monks, who finally sought in all manner of
ways to compass his death.
All this while Heloi'se was at the Benedictine

84 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

convent at Argenteuil. But now the Abbot of St
Denis claimed the property as an ancient dependency
of his monastery, and obtained a bull from the Pope
to eject the nuns. When the news reached Abelard,
he invited He'loise to come with any nuns of her
convent to the Paraclete, and made over to her
absolutely the oratory and buildings, a donation
which was confirmed by the Pope. Heloise was made
abbess in 1131. At first the nuns lived in much
anxiety, but gifts and grants from the neighbouring
nobles poured in, and soon the abbey was in a pros-
perous condition. The bishops loved Heloise as a
daughter, says Abelard in this letter, abbots as a
sister, laymen as their mother ; all admired her piety,
her wisdom, her incomparable sweetness of patience.
His letter ends with an account of the daily dangers
he has to face of poison and the knife from his wild
" sons " at St Gildas.

This in brief is the letter which fell into the
hands of Heloise and gave rise to the world-famous
correspondence between husband and wife.

The first letter of Heloise bears the following
inscription : — To her lord, yea father ; to her
husband, yea brother ; from his servant, yea
daughter ; his wife, yea sister ; to Abelard from
Heloise.

Twelve years had passed since He'loise had entered
the convent, a girl of eighteen. For twelve years
she had performed punctually and with exterior
calm the duties of conventual life ; nay, more, she
had won the confidence of her superiors, the love and

HELOISE 85

admiration of her fellows. Like Abelard, her whole
bent was towards reason, towards science, towards
exterior knowledge, and for twelve years she had
submitted to a round uninvested with mystery and
a discipline to her unmeaning. In all ages there
must have been souls like Heloise to whom the
convent was no place of purification, no gateway
to the joys of heaven : only a prison, with prison
regulations, made the more terrible by the memory
of delights shut away for ever. But for her letters
we should never have learned whether these austeri-
ties had crushed her spirit, or deadened her into
mechanical acquiescence, or exhausted her emotional
capacity. They reveal, however, a love unquench-
able through time and circumstance, which to this
very hour has power of moving us profoundly by
its depth and fervour. Her piercing anxiety for
Abelard's safety amid the perils of St Gildas ;
the strong attachments she shows for the buildings
Abelard's disciples have raised with their own hands
in this desert so recently the haunt of robbers and
wild beasts ; her passionate adjurations that as
founder of their community he should visit them
sometimes, or at least write to them ; the very
words she uses ; show the vitality of a flame which
burned as fierce and clear in the heart of the woman
of thirty as in the heart of the girl of eighteen.
Her obedience, she writes, complete and final, her
supreme sacrifice of self, were only the logical out-
come of her love. Not for his position, not for his
genius, not for his wealth, nor for her own pleasure

86 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

did she love Abelard, but for himself alone. From
God she had no reward to expect : everyone knew
she had done nothing for His sake. Abelard alone
can give her pain, he alone can give her joy and
consolation. " The name of wife may be more
sacred and more approved, but the name of mistress
is sweeter to me," she writes, " for in thus humbling
myself I do less injury to the glory of your genius.
Had Augustus, master of the world, thought me
worthy of his alliance, I would have held it sweeter
and nobler to be your mistress than the queen of a
Caesar." She ends her letter : " Farewell, my all."

We think that this letter must have come as a
revelation to Abelard. He may have believed that
the convent had brought to He'loi'se, if not happiness,
at least a measure of peace. How was he, an abbot,
a Catholic priest, to answer this passionate appeal ?
Critics complain that his reply is cold and ecclesiastic,
and we admit the justice of the complaint, but we
hold that his attitude indicates the extreme difficulty
of dealing with the situation, rather than any arid
formalism. His letter praises the wisdom of
H61oi'se, her piety, her fervour. Abelard branches
off into a long dissertation on the excellence of
prayer. He gives her a form of prayer to be used
by the nuns for his salvation, and begs her, if he
fall a victim to his enemies, to have his body brought
to the Paraclete, " for there is no safer or more
blessed spot for the rest of a sorrowing soul."

At this letter from Abelard the floodgates
opened. Heloise could not bear his assumption

HELOISE 87

that she had become the quiet abbess, forgetful of
a past that tortured her almost beyond endurance.
In her first letter she has told how her love is the
very life-breath of her being ; in her second she
reveals the anguish of suffering that she has under-
gone and is still undergoing. Now that they are
separated, his well-being is all that is left to her,
and, flinging aside all reticence, she arraigns God for
His cruelty, His injustice, in punishing them, not
before, but after their marriage. " My chastity is
praised," she says, " but chastity is of the soul, and
my imagination still dwells passionately on all the
tender moments of our love. My piety is praised,
because I conform to exterior regulations, but how
shall that profit me with God if all the while I rebel
against my punishment, and am consumed with
longing for the old sweet joys which haunt my
thoughts without ceasing ? "

Abelard could not fail to see in this letter a soul
in torment. His reply is still the reply of an
ecclesiastic, but of one who strives to bring balm
and comfort. There is tenderness in it, emotion ;
he has forgotten for the moment all his own
immediate dangers and difficulties ; he remembers
that it is his wife who speaks to him, partner of his
joy as of his punishment. He invokes her sense of
justice, her pride, her responsibility, but he knows
that it is only through her love for him that he can
hope for lasting influence. So he bids her make
their love, rooted in desire, an immortal love, rooted
in God. " O my beloved," he writes, " remember

88 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

from what perilous abysses God has drawn us with
the nets of His mercy ! Will you, who were willing
to follow me into the burning gulf, refuse to accom-
pany me to Eternal Bliss ? Share with me the
Grace of God, O my inseparable companion, as you
have shared with me my sin and my pardon ! "

The appeal was not in vain. In nothing will
H61oi'se disobey. There shall be no more passionate
outpourings. Abelard has imposed silence on her
almost unbearable anguish. In all succeeding
letters, she is the abbess consulting her spiritual
superior.

These letters on points of discipline have, natur-
ally enough, attracted less attention than the love
letters, but they throw sharp light on the character
of the lovers and from the historical point of view
contain matter of deep interest. Asceticism was
repugnant to Helo'ise, mysticism was absent from
her nature. She did not hold that salvation required
over-arduous effort, and never doubted that God
would reserve her a little corner in heaven. That
her life as abbess should have proved so elevating,
and her convent have become under her guidance
a centre of light, is a proof, not of vocation, but of
noble will-power. In asking Abelard to give her
nuns a Rule, she pleads for much latitude and a
mild discipline. She would have entire liberty left
to her nuns as to food and drink ; she desires them
to be allowed meat and wine ; as to fasts, she says,
let Christians observe them as an abstention from
vice, rather than as an abstention from food. With

HELOISE 89

many learned allusions, on the authority of Jesus
Himself and St Paul and the Fathers, she proves
that it is not in exterior acts that we should put
our faith, but in interior ones. The Kingdom of
God, she quotes, is not in meat or in drink, but in
the Holy Spirit. The letter is a very remarkable
one for an abbess of the twelfth century. It is
independent in judgment, unswayed by authority,
full of insight and learning.

Contrasted with her letters, Abelard's seem
written in the tone of conventual tradition — .though
at this time he was composing his most speculative
works, among them the " Sic et Non," to which allu-
sion has already been made. True, the Rule he gives
is not of excessive rigour, and he shows all obser-
vance to the suggestions made by Heloise. He
allows the nuns meat three times a week ; on the
days they have not meat they are to have two kinds
of vegetables and fish. He gives one direction
which shows a refinement beyond his time. There
is a practice common to many religious houses
which he holds in horror : to save the convent linen
many wipe their knives on the bread that is to be
given to the poor : this he expressly forbids. The
nuns are not required to fast more frequently than
pious laymen, nor are they to be too much curtailed
in hours of sleep. Sleep, says Abelard, refreshes
the body, renders it fit for work, keeps it healthy
and in good order. The habits are to be of black
wool, and the veils, marked with a cross of white
thread, are to be made out of dyed linen. Double

90 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

habits are to be worn in winter, and the nuns are
to have two of every article, so that things may be
washed. They are to wear shoes and stockings,
never to walk barefooted.

It is clear from these regulations that Abelard as
well as He"loi'se set himself to oppose the excessive
severities that the reformers of the orders sought
to force upon the monasteries — severities to which
few men were equal, and the breach of which led
to continual irregularities. Abelard lays particular
stress on the importance of study in convents,
not merely of reading, but of reading with intelli-
gence. " And you, too, my dear sister," he writes
to H61oise, " endeavour to dig within yourself a
well-spring, a fountain, in order that when you read
the Holy Scriptures you can yourself interpret them
in accordance with the lessons taught by the Church.
You have within yourself a spring of living water,
an unquenchable well, a spring of intelligence and
reason ; do not allow it to be obstructed by earth
and stones."

In Abelard 's attitude towards women, as revealed
in the letters, there is a curious admixture of the
prelate and the original thinker. He holds that
women are inferior, yet all his arguments tend to
disprove the contention. Woman was created in
Paradise, he tells us, and man was created out of
Paradise : so Paradise is woman's native land.
The last shall be first and the first shall be last :
so woman has more honour in the eyes of God than
man. Even by the Church virginity is held in

HELOISE 91

higher renown than celibacy. Virginity requires
a special consecration, which can only take place
at certain solemn festivals, and only bishops can
bless virgins and give them their veils. Perhaps
the most interesting statement in Abelard's long
discourse on virginity concerns itself with the
anointment of Jesus as Priest and King. When
Mary broke the vase of precious ointment over His
head, He received royal unction from the hands of a
woman, and it was as King of Heaven and not as
King of Earth that a woman consecrated him.
" Judge thereby of the dignity of woman : by her
the living Christ was anointed twice, ointment being
poured on feet and on head ; from her he received
the unction of King and of Priest."

The letters cover approximately a period of ten
years. In 1141 the Council of Sens was held, and
almost immediately afterwards excommunication
was pronounced upon Abelard. He received the
news at Cluny, when on his way to Rome to plead
his cause with the Pope. The Abbot of Cluny, Peter
the Venerable, proved his friend, received him and
gave him high place among his own monks, per-
suaded the Pope to remove the excommunication,
and patched up some kind of reconciliation between
Bernard and Abelard. In 1142 Abelard died at
St Marcel at Chalons-sur- Seine, whither he had been
sent for change of air. Peter the Venerable wrote
to Heloise that Abelard had shown himself more
humble than St Germain, poorer than St Martin ;
and that neither in soul nor speech nor conduct did

92 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

he manifest aught but what was divine, philosophical
and wise. Helo'ise replied to Peter, asking for the
body of Abelard for burial at the Paraclete, and
begging for a written and sealed absolution of
Abelard's sins. With her requests Peter complied,
and Abelard's body was secretly conveyed to the
Paraclete, where it was buried. Twenty years
after He"loise herself died, and there is a legend in
the Chronicle of the Church of Tours which tells
how at her burial the husband opened his arms to
receive the wife from whom he had been parted so
long, and who was now his for evermore.

Their remains, after many translations, rest in the
cemetery of Pere la Chaise at Paris. Where in all
the world is a spot more fitting than the tomb of
Abelard and Heloi'se to brood upon " love's bitter
mysteries, '^love's passion, its inspiration, its sacrifice,
its suffering, its constancy ? Perhaps no other
great historical love story includes so large a range
of love's experience — glamour so intoxicating, separa-
tion so final, purgation so complete. And what gives
this love tragedy its abiding appeal is the fact that
it was the result not of destiny, but of human
miscalculations, weaknesses, ignorances. Abelard
and Helo'ise, great as they are, are still very man
and woman ; as truly man and woman under the
mask of monastic habit as when the book fell from
their hands and they read in each other's eyes the
surpassing revelation.

And so it is that the lovers of to-day still place
flowers on the grave of these lovers of the twelfth

HELOlSE 93

century ; and the women of to-day still dream with
a tenderness that is almost maternal of the love of
Abelard, forgiving all its fatalities ; and the men
of to-day still linger in thought over the love of
Heloi'se, strong, pure, selfless, unquenchable through
time.

ST CLARE
The Lady Poverty

IS it possible for us to understand, even in a
slight degree, the Franciscan Ideal of poverty ?
Poverty to-day is ugly, sordid, cruel ; to the Fran-
ciscans she was beautiful, noble, kind. She was the
Lady Poverty, object of romantic devotion, sought
by steep ways, worshipped in story and in song.
She was the chosen spouse of Christ, and had followed
him where the Virgin herself could not climb, up on the
cross itself. She was to the lover his beloved, to the
worshipper his saint. " O my dear Lord Jesus, have
pity upon me and upon my Lady Poverty," Francis
prayed, "for I am consumed with love for her and
can know no rest without her." Having nothing,
she had all. Spiritual joy and earthly joy were hers
to give — spiritual joy, for she opened the treasures
of the kingdom of heaven ; earthly joy, for she taught
the kinship of all creatures in the Creator's love.
She was no stern or hard-visaged mentor, but in-
finitely gracious and tender ; she rolled away the
barrier of possessions, only to reveal a sweeter and
wider inheritance. Not only did the high virtues
follow in her train, she was not only, to quote
St Francis, "the way to salvation, the nurse of
humility and the root of perfection," but where

94

ST CLARE 95

she passed came flowers and the singing of birds and
the sound of happy waters. By her all was sanctified
and blessed, every deed consecrated, every meal
made sacramental.

" We have lost the power of imagining what this
ancient idealization of poverty could have meant,"
says Professor William James — " the liberation from
material attachments, the unbridled soul, the manlier
indifference, the paying our way by what we are or
do, and not by what we have, the right to fling away
our life at any moment irresponsibly, the more athletic
trim, in short, the moral fighting shape. ... It is
certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among
the educated classes is the worst moral disease from
which our civilization suffers."

Let us then pause for one brief moment to look at
the Lady Poverty as she appeared to her Franciscan
lovers. Francis, when he went to Innocent III. to
obtain confirmation of his Rule, described her as a very
beautiful woman living in the desert, whom a great
king took to wife, and by whom he had noble chil-
dren. Her praises were sung by minstrels and poets,
her perfections were embodied in symbol and alle-
gory. Not only the loveliness of the Lady Poverty
made her desirable, but the very difficulty of approach-
ing her added zest to the wooing. In a treatise
written by an unknown Franciscan in 1227, a year
after Francis's death, the Lady Poverty is described
as dwelling on a high mountain, hard of access. We
are told how the Blessed Francis went about the
highways and the byways of the city, diligently

96 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

seeking her whom his soul did love. But poor and
great alike despised and hated the name of poverty.
At last he saw two old men in a field. " And when
the Blessed Francis had come up with them he said
unto them : ' Tell me, I beseech you, where the Lady
Poverty dwells, where she feeds her flock, where she
takes her rest at noon, for I languish for the love of
her.' But they answered him, saying : ' O good
brother, we have sat here for a time and times and
half a time, and have often seen her pass this way,
and many were they who sought her. . . . And now,
O brother, ascend the great and high mountain
whereon the Lord hath placed her. For she dwelleth
in the Holy Mountains because God hath loved her
more than all the tents of Jacob.' ' And then in
leisurely fashion we are told how Blessed Francis, with
a few faithful companions, climbed the mountain
and attained to the Lady Poverty, how for a long
space of time they discoursed together, and how
finally she followed them down into the plains, and
dwelt with them.

This idealization of Poverty, all the tender imag-
ination that clothed an abstraction with graces and
attributes, are characteristic of the poet that Francis
was — God's minstrel. Like a faithful knight, he
must have a lady to worship with body and soul ;
like a troubadour, he must praise the Lord he
served with joyous song. Brother Leo, his secre-
tary and confessor, tells us in " The Mirror of
Perfection " (a book written one year after Francis's
death) :

ST CLARE 97

" Drunken with the love and compassion of Christ,
the Blessed Francis did at times make such songs,
for the passing sweet melody of the spirit within him,
seething over outwardly, did oftentimes find utter-
ance in the French tongue, and the strain of the
divine whisper that his ear had caught would break
forth into a French song of joyous exulting. At times
he would pick up a stick from the ground, and, setting
it upon his left shoulder, would draw another stick
after the manner of a bow with his right hand
athwart the same, as athwart a viol or other instru-
ment, and, making befitting gestures, would sing in
French of our Lord Jesus Christ. But all this show
of joyance would be ended in tears, and the exultation
would die out in pity of Christ's passion."

There was one among the friars who had been a
troubadour, Brother Pacifico, that in the world was
called the King of Verse and the right courteous
Doctor of Singers, and Francis would give him sundry
of the brothers to go with him throughout the world,
preaching and singing the praises of the Lord.
" And when the lauds were ended, he would that the
preacher should say unto the people : ' We be the
minstrels of the Lord, and this largesse do we crave
of you, to wit, that ye shall be in the state of true
repentance.' And saith he : ' For what be the
servants of God but certain minstrels of His that so
lift up the hearts of men and move them to spiritual
gladness ? '

Faithful knights of the Lady Poverty, God's

98 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

minstrels that lift up the hearts of men and move
them to spiritual gladness : under this guise do we
vision Francis and his early companions.

The scenes of the Franciscan story pass before us,
clear-cut and vivid, lit by a light of such great purity
that all in them of crude, of foolish, of grotesque,
fades away, is forgotten, in the beauty of joy, of
simplicity, of selflessness. Under a sky limpid blue
as the early Italian painters used, but with a radiance
that no paint can give, we see the brown-frocked
brothers — for brown superseded the earlier grey —
preaching in the market-squares, taking food to
robbers, going forth with absolute singleness of
aim to encounter hardship, contempt, and perhaps
martyrdom. " Because they possessed nothing
earthly," says the Franciscan Bonaventura, " loved
nothing earthly, and feared to lose nothing earthly,
they were secure in all places : troubled by no fears,
distracted by no cares, they lived, without trouble
of mind, waiting without solicitude for the coming
day or the night's lodging."

This detachment of spirit from material things
— and such detachment of spirit is what Francis
meant by poverty — has in many cases involved
a denial of the manifold loveliness of creation, a
forgetfulness of the kinship of creature with creature.
In the case of Francis and the early Franciscans
freedom from the bondage of things had an
opposite effect : it bestowed an ecstatic delight
in natural beauty, a sense of sweetest comrade-
ship, not only with man, but with bird and beast,

ST CLARE 99

with rock and stone, with vines and grass, with fire
and water. More than a thousand years before,
Plato, in the " Symposium," showed how the soul
might mount from the temporal to the eternal, how
the beauty of earth might be made a ladder to reach
absolute beauty. " The true order of going to the
things of love is to use the beauties of earth as^steps
along which one mounts upward for the sake of that
other beauty, going from one to two, and from two
to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions,
and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair
notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty
and at last knows what the essence of beauty is."
Francis was no philosopher ; but we find in his life
this difficult saying reduced to simple terms, ex-
pounded so as to be understood by the rudest and
most unlearned intellect.

Take as an illustration a little scene that is set forth
in the " Fioretti." This thirteenth-century collec-
tion of episodes, some of them written by Francis's
early companions, some of them founded on tradi-
tion, have not the authenticity possessed by the
contemporary biographies of the saint, but they
show him to us as he appeared in the eyes of the
people : and literature possesses few things lovelier
or more tender than these " Little Flowers of St
Francis."

One day going through Provence, says the legend,
Francis and his companions came upon a very clear
fountain in a solitary spot, by the side of which was a
great smooth stone in the form of a table. Francis,

ioo WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

kindled by the beauty of the scene, proposed that they
should stop here and dine. So the brothers spread
upon the table the alms they had collected. " Our
blessed father," says the chronicler, " full of joy and
light-heartedness in the midst of such poverty, kept
saying over and over again : ' We are not worthy of
such vast treasures.' At length, when he had repeated
many times these self-same words, Brother Masseo
waxed impatient and made answer : ' Father, how can
one speak of treasure where is such poverty and lack
of all things whereof there is need ? Here is no cloth,
nor knife, nor plate, nor porringer, nor house, nor
table, nor man-servant, nor maid-servant.' Quoth
St Francis : ' And this it is that I account vast
treasure, wherein is no thing at all prepared by
human hands, but whatsoever we have is given by
God's own providence, as manifestly doth appear in
the bread that we have begged, in the table of stone
so fine, and in the fount so clear ; whereof I will that
we pray unto God that He make us to love with all
our heart the treasure of holy poverty, which is so
noble, that thereunto did God Himself become a
servitor.' '

Herein it is clearly seen that no cold austerity,
no gloomy renouncement, is involved in the love of
Poverty ; merely she sweeps away the barriers that
divide God from man, nature from man, creature
from man.

It would take too long to tell of the love of Francis
for all things created : for the little crested lark
" who hath a hood like the Religious " ; for the turtle-

ST CLARE 101

doves (" O my sisters, simpleminded turtle-doves,
innocent and chaste, why have ye let yourselves be
caught ? " ) whom he rescued, and for whom he made
nests. His sympathy with the brute creation is
embodied in many a popular tradition ; we read how
the hunted hare found refuge with him, and how he
tamed the fierce wolf of Agobio, and how he preached
to the birds, marvelling much at so great a company
and their most beautiful diversity and their good
heed and sweet friendliness, for the which cause he
most devoutly praised their Creator in them. Here
are his own words as reported by Brother Leo :
" An I ever have speech with the emperor, I will
entreat him and persuade him and tell him that for
the love of God and of me he ought to make a special
law that none snare or kill our sisters the larks nor
do any evil unto them. In like manner that all the
mayors of the cities and lords of the castles and
towns be bound every year on the day of the Nativity
of our Lord, to compel their men to throw wheat and
other grain beyond the cities and walled towns, so
that our sisters the larks may have whereof to eat,
and other birds also on a day of so passing solemnity
. . . whosoever hath an ox and an ass bound on that
night to provide them with provender the best that
may be, and in like manner also that on such a day
all poor folk should be given their fill of good victual
by the rich."

There was in Francis's love of every element the
extravagance of the poet. So much did he love
Brother Fire that he would not put out the flame of

102 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

a candle ; when he washed his hands he desired that
Brother Water should have a fair place on which to
fall. Rocks and streams and woods were holy to him ;
hills and mountains, full of the divine. On this point,
surely, we may say that Francis has spiritual kinship
with the modern poets who see " in the fires on the
mountains, in the rainbow glow of air, in the magic
light on water and earth, . . . the radiance of deity
shining through our shadowy world." We are apt to
consider that this view of Nature as " Spirit in her
clods Pathway to the God of Gods " is to some extent
a development of modern times, and the many superb
nature poems that teach initiation through nature
have seemed to many a revelation, something new
in the history of human experience. Amid the flit
and glitter of the enchanted " Woods of Wester-
main," George Meredith leads the neophyte by the
way of self-renunciation to illumination and union.
In lines of inspired nature interpretation he teaches
us how sweetest fellowship may be made to ensue
with the creatures of our kind, and how, if we look
with spirit past the sense " Spirit shines in per-
manence." Swinburne, too, in the overwhelming
noontide stress of his great nature poem, " A Nympho-
lept," leads us beyond the "divine dim powers,"
the pagan Pan and his train — that are earth-born,
to that point of deeper vision where earth and heaven
are seen to be one — " the shadows that sunder them
here take flight And naught is all, as am I, but a dream
of thee." Nature also guides Wordsworth by way
of passionate rapture and ecstasy to that elevation

ST CLARE 103

of soul by which he perceives in the landscape that
" Something still more deeply interfused, Whose
dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round
ocean and the living globe. ..." We might multi-
ply instances from modern poets, showing how the
world is to them but a fluid envelope. It is, however,
unnecessary to labour the point. We would merely
lay stress on the fact that all these modern nature
poets ought to acknowledge St Francis as their
spiritual father ; for, writes Brother Leo in " The
Mirror of Perfection," " we that were with him did
see that he did so greatly rejoice both inwardly and
outwardly as it were in all things created, that in
touching them or looking thereon his spirit did seem
to be, not upon earth but in heaven." Truly holy
Poverty brought him treasure inexhaustible of love-
liness and of joy, and was herself, in his own words,
" a treasure so high-excelling and so divine that we
be not worthy to lay it up in our vile vessels ; since
this is that celestial virtue whereby all earthly things
and fleeting are trodden underfoot, and whereby all
hindrances are lifted from the soul, so that freely
she may join herself to God eternal. And this is the
virtue that makes the soul, still tied to earth, hold
converse with the angels in heaven, and this it is
that hung with Christ upon the cross, with Christ
was buried, with Christ rose up again, with Christ
ascended into heaven."

But in order to attain to the nuptials with poverty
"all earthly things and fleeting must be trodden under-
foot." Few have taken this precept more literally

104 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

than Francis, and than Clare, his devoted friend and
helper. Individual possessions were forbidden by the
older orders of religion, but the community might
lay up for itself indefinite land and riches ; Francis's
plea for poverty, not merely for every Franciscan,
but for the Franciscan Brotherhood, was something
new, something strange, something that the popes
felt ought not to be lightly granted. With what
indomitable courage Clare fought for this ideal after
the death of Francis will be told hereafter : here let
us endeavour to show the practical shape taken by
Francis's devotion to his Lady.

" Sell all thou hast and give to the poor," was
the first condition of becoming a Franciscan. But
renunciation of possessions was no more than a
preliminary step. Henceforward shelter was to be
of the meagrest, and food begged as an alms. The
Franciscans were to live in sheds and cabins and cells
made of wattle and dab " after a. sorry sort and
builded after a mean pattern." The churches were
to be small and simple. In this very simplicity and
meanness Francis found romance and poetry. " He
had no liking for aught in tables or vessels that was
of worldly seeming, and whereof remembrance of the
world might be recalled ; so that all things might
point towards poverty as their end and intent, and
all things chant songs of pilgrimage and exile."
Once when Francis came to Bologna and found that
the brothers had built a great house in his absence,
he had them all turned out into the street, sick as
well as whole. In " The Mirror of Perfection " we

ST CLARE 105

read how the Lord Bishop of Ostia, afterwards Pope
Gregory IX., wept and was much edified at the
poverty of the brethren : " And when he saw that
the brethren lay on the ground and had naught under
them but a little straw and some bolsters, all tattered
and torn as it were, and no pillows, he began to weep
sore before them all, saying : ' Lo, you here where the
brethren sleep, while we wretched ones do make use
of so many superfluities ! How will it be with us
for this ? ' Moreover, no table saw he there, for
that in that place the brethren did eat together on
the ground."

It was before the time of his conversion that
Francis, in a paroxysm of sympathy, threw off his
rich clothes and put on beggars' rags, and for a day
sat with the other beggars, begging in French on
the steps of St Peter's in Rome. He held that the
bread received as alms was holy bread, sanctified
by the praise and love of the Almighty. For,
" when a brother asks alms he begins by saying,
' Praised and blessed be the Lord our God ' ; then
he adds, ' Give me alms for the love of the Lord our
God.' Thus praise sanctifies the bread, and it is
made blessed by the love of the Lord." God's
minstrel speaks here, who sees the radiance of
charity shining under the broken fragments. But
Francis was not alone in regarding food given in
alms as holy. There is a story told that when he
was visiting the Lord Cardinal, Bishop of Ostia, he
went by stealth from door to door for alms. On his
return " Blessed Francis, drawing nigh the table,

io6 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

did set thereon before the Cardinal such alms as he
had found, and took his seat next him at the table,
for he would that the Blessed Francis should always
sit anigh him. And the Cardinal was thereby some
little ashamed that he should have gone for alms
and set them on the table, but as at that time he
said naught unto him on account of them that were
there present seated. And when he had eaten some
little, the Blessed Francis took of his alms and sent
a portion thereof to each of the knights and the
chaplains of my Lord Cardinal on behalf of our
Lord God. Who all receiving the same with great
gladness and devotion, did spread out their hoods
and cassocks, and some did eat thereof, and some
did set it aside out of devotion to him."

No scene could illustrate more forcibly the power
of Francis's simplicity, nor his literal rendering of
the precepts he had laid down. But there was never
in his mind any sense of discourtesy to his host, and
the Lord Cardinal, after he had spoken with Francis,
said : " My son, do whatsoever is right in thine own
eyes, forasmuch as God is with thee, and thou art
with Him." Indeed, one of the first rules Francis
gave his brethren was : " Eat what is set before
you." Sometimes he himself would mingle ashes
secretly with the rich meats served to him at the
tables of the great, but always he held courtesy
to others of greater importance than his own
abstinence.

It is not easy to renounce fine houses and riches
and delicate food and soft raiment : the Franciscan

ST CLARE 107

ideal of renunciation demanded more than this.
The final surrender of self for Francis came when he
kissed the leper. The love of fellow-man won in this
action its complete triumph ; the horror of loath-
some disease was lost in the sweet recognition of
human kinship. " When Francis ate with the leper
and kissed him out of pure love for a suffering human
fellow," says Dr Rufus Jones, " he had discovered
the true way to rejuvenate Christianity."

Such an action, possible in the Middle Ages,
frequent indeed then where utter self-abnegation
was sought, and where self-conquest was regarded
as a high virtue, has with our greater scientific
knowledge, become increasingly difficult and abhor-
rent. The worship of cleanliness, the study of
hygiene — these have raised more insuperable barriers
between class and class than any caste system
known in the West. Preoccupied with the physical,
we have not that faith which can ignore its ugliness
and its dirt for the sake of the divine spark it covers.
Some of us read the stories of kings and queens
washing the feet of beggars with smiling contempt ;
yet we can never adequately reach our struggling
fellow-men unless we can overcome the repulsion
induced by the circumstances in which they live.
Francis understood this : with the sublime exaggera-
tion that characterized all his actions, he kissed the
leper and ate out of the same dish with him, and so
for all time gave the type of absolute selflessness.
" You must love the light so well That no darkness
will seem fell." So says George Meredith ; and no

io8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

great work has ever been accomplished but by
loving the light — give it what definition we will.

Francis, with his great capacity for love, love that
embraced every human being and every creature,
nature inanimate as well as animate, loved specially
the light ; loved it so well that disease, sin, death —
all the darknesses that cloud our day — vanished
in its full radiance. Luxuries, superfluities, posses-
sions and the care that possessions bring, were all
let and hindrance to the clear shining of the light ;
and that was why the Lady Poverty was Francis's
chosen bride. So real to the mediaeval mind was
this embodiment of Poverty as a lovely woman, that
many an early master has painted with concrete
detail the Nuptials of Francis and Poverty ; and
Dante has celebrated their espousals in unforgotten
verse.

" Still young, he for his lady's love forswore

His father ; for a bride whom none approves,
But rather, as on death, would close the door.
In sight o£ all the heavenly court that moves
Around the Eternal Father, they were wed,
And more from day to day increased their loves.

She of her first love long bereft had led
A thousand years, and yet a hundred more

By no man sought, life hard and sore bested.

But lest my hidden words the truth should veil,

Francis and Poverty these lovers were,
Of whom I weave at too great length my tale :

Their concord, of dear love the minister,
Their joyful air, their loving looks and kind

Did holy thoughts in every spirit stir."jj

ST CLARE 109

The Little Flower of St Francis

" The Little Flower of St Francis " : so Clare
called herself in her last testament ; and no image
could more perfectly express the sweetness and
fragrance of the spiritual friendship between Francis
and herself. She was in very truth the Flower of
Francis's inspiration, fed at the fount of his teach-
ing, unfolding under the radiant influence of his
personality ; something rare, exquisite, individual,
no mere copy of him who next to God was " the
master-light of all her seeing," and yet owing to
him the impulse of her life. Tenderness was hers,
illumination and, above all, courage. Like the
northern harebell, there was in her an elasticity
and spring that rose vigorous and erect after every
tempest. One of the earliest followers of Francis,
she embraced Poverty with the same heartwhole
devotion as himself. After his death she defended
her Lady for twenty-seven years, against brothers
who fought for the relaxation of the rule, and
popes who hesitated to confirm its privileges. With
an intuition born of devotion, she divined the
intention of Francis, she read his soul. Co-founder
with him, we never see in imagination the brown-
robed Franciscan friars without calling to vision the
barefooted Clares in their grey habits with black
hoods ; heroic women, who, like the men, dared the
heights of renunciation and abstinence, and who
forwent the consolations enjoyed by the friars, of
free contact with their fellows and with the world.

no WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

The story of Francis and the early Franciscans is
the one great story in the history of Christianity of
an attempt to walk literally in the footsteps of
Jesus Christ. Francis and his followers set them-
selves to obey literally His commands as they
understood them. Uninfluenced by the mystical
conceptions of Christ elaborated by John and Paul,
untouched by the ecclesiastical conception of
Christ taught by the hierarchy of the Roman
Church, they went straight back to the Gospel
narrative, and reproduced as far as lay in their power
on the plains of Assisi the life that had been led
eleven hundred years before in Palestine. The story
has come down to us in a literature naive and lovely,
having that simplicity, that joy, that faith which
was the essence of the attempt. Against a lurid
background of horrible warfare and shameless
Church corruption, we see the little company of
friars illumined in an atmosphere of peace and love.

Clare is only a passing light in these histories,
and one cannot help regretting that her biography
was not written by one of the early companions of
Francis. Clare, it is true, had the same " official "
biographer as Francis himself — one Thomas of
Celano, a Franciscan friar, the reputed author of
Dies Irae, who wrote her life somewhere between
1265 and 1261 — she died in 1253. Brother Thomas,
however, rejoiced in a style that ill accorded with the
ideal of Franciscan simplicity. He loved tropes and
puns and alliteration and high-sounding epithets,
and these defects had increased upon him when he

ST CLARE in

wrote of Clare, a quarter of a century after having
written of Francis. It is true that he took great
pains to achieve accuracy ; he tells us that he
examined the Ada of Clare which formed the basis
of her canonization, and also that he conversed
with those brothers and sisters who had known
her most intimately. So that, although Thomas of
Celano's story lacks the charm, the subtle insight
of much of the Franciscan literature, it is at least
a transcript of such facts as could be ascertained by
a contemporary — a contemporary, be it remembered,
with a bias towards conventional ecclesiasticism,
and therefore apt to miss or to slur over the elements
of freedom and freshness that characterized the
movement in its early stages. However, with his
help, and help from other more inspired contem-
porary sources, together with her will, fragments of
her correspondence and papal bulls, we will do our
best to tell the story of Clare.

Clare was born in 1194 of a noble family of Assisi.
She was twelve years younger than Francis, thirteen
years old, therefore, when the great change came
over his life. Even during her childhood she may
have heard speak of the pranks of the gay young
cavalier, lover of music and of song, the " flower
of youth " in Assisi. During her girlhood, for very
different reasons, his name was on every tongue.
Francis, out of the very simplicity of his soul, did
no action that was not moving, dramatic, symbolic.
Clare must have been told how, when Francis was
praying at the little ruined wayside church of St

U2 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Damian on the slopes below Assisi, a voice had
seemed to speak to him out of the wood of the
crucifix : " Francis, seest thou not that My house
is in ruins ? Go and restore it for Me." She must
have learned how, accepting the command literally,
he had taken bales of cloth from his father's shop,
and sold them at the fair at Foligno ; she must
have known how the anger of his father was kindled
against him, and how, in an access of enthusiasm,
Francis stripped himself in the Episcopal palace,
not merely symbolically, but actually naked,
announcing that henceforward he would only say:
" My Father which art in heaven, no more my father,
Pietro Bernardone." Clare may have seen Francis
in the streets of Assisi with his own hands carrying
stones to repair St Damian : it was only later that
he interpreted the words, " Restore My house," in a
wider and more general sense as meaning the Church
Universal.

What manner of man would Clare have seen ?
" Mean to look upon and small of stature," say the
"Fioretti." One delightful episode is told in this
collection of stories which bears on Francis's appear-
ance. A wood surrounded Our Lady of the Little
Portion on the plain below Assisi, where the Fran-
ciscans had their first monastery. One day as
Francis came out of the wood after prayer he
encountered Brother Masseo, who, to test him, said,
as though mocking him : ' Why after thee ?
Wrhy after thee ? Why after thee ? ' Replied St
Francis : ' What is it thou wouldst say ? ' Quoth

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSIST
From an early portrait in the church of Sacra Speco, Sitfria

ST CLARE 113

Brother Masseo : ' I say, why doth all the world
come after thee, and why is it seen that all men long
to look on thee, and hear thee and obey thee ?
Thou art not a man comely of form, thou art not of
much wisdom, thou art not noble of birth : whence
comes it, then, that it is after thee that the whole
world doth run ? ' Hearing this St Francis, all
overjoyed in spirit, replied : ' Wilt thou know
why after me the whole world doth run ? ... To do
this marvellous work the which He purposeth to do,
He hath not found upon the earth a creature more
vile, and therefore hath he chosen me to confound
the nobleness and the greatness and the strength
and the beauty and wisdom of the world.' ' ' Brother
Masseo was no doubt edified by this reason, but
Francis's other companions and Clare would have
given another answer to the question, " Why after
thee ? " if indeed they could have found words
at all. For to name the exquisite courtesy of
Francis, his sympathy, his joy, the poetry of his
nature that touched everything with radiance —
these phrases would have seemed to his followers
only an empty summary ; so far beyond the power
of expression is the sway exercised by love and
purity and devotion. In the same way we have to
animate with flame and with tenderness the more
detailed account of his appearance as given by
Thomas of Celano. " He was of middle stature,"
says Brother Thomas, " rather under than over,
with an oval face and full but low forehead ; his
eyes dark and clear, his hair thick, his eyebrows
H

H4 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

straight ; a straight yet delicate nose, a voice soft
yet keen and fiery ; close, equal and white teeth ;
lips modest yet subtle ; a black beard not thickly
grown ; a thin neck, square shoulders, short arms,
thin hands with long fingers, small feet, delicate
skin and little flesh ; roughly clothed, sleeping
little ; his hand ever open in charity."

Such was the man into whose keeping Clare gave
her soul. She was sixteen when she heard him preach
at the church of St George at Assisi, and after that
life had only one goal. We are told that Francis
was as eager to converse with her as she with him,
" being wishful for spoils and having come to
depopulate the kingdom of this world," and their
meetings were frequent. We quote from Thomas
of Celano : " Francis visited Clare, and she more
frequently visited him, so ordering the times of
their visits that their holy meetings might neither
become known by man nor disparaged by public
rumour. For, accompanied by a single confidential
companion, the girl going forth from her parental
home in secret frequently visited the man of God ;
to her his words seemed a flame and his deeds more
than human. . . . Thenceforth Clare committed her-
self wholly to the guidance of Francis, considering
him to be, after God, the director of her steps."

Some of these meetings took place, perhaps, at
St Mary of the Angels, also called St Mary of the
Little Portion (" the Little Portion " being the
original name of the site on which the church and
monastery were built). Here was the first home

ST CLARE 115

of the Franciscans ; here the first brothers lived in
little huts and cells constructed out of wattle. The
Little Portion stood some two miles outside the
gates of Assisi, and half-a-mile from the church of
St Damian that Francis had restored with his own
hands.

It was arranged between Francis and Clare that
on the night of Palm Sunday she should leave all
and come to God. She was at that time eighteen
years old, tall, as all her pictures show her, with
almond-shaped eyes, broad forehead and small chin.
The great day of her life dawned, Palm Sunday,
1212. With her parents she went to the cathedral
to hear Mass. After the ceremony of blessing the
palms, the congregation filed past the bishop, who
presented a palm to each. Clare, overcome with
emotion, remained in her place. Then the bishop
stepped down from the altar and, accompanied by
the acolytes bearing tapers, put a palm into the
hands of the trembling girl. To her it was an act of
solemn consecration, a fitting prelude to the great
surrender. Night came. Tradition tells how with
her own hands Clare removed the stones and wood
that blocked up a " death door " in her father's
house ; for it was the custom in Italian cities to
block up a door for a year through which a corpse
had been carried. A small arched door is still
pointed out as being the one through which Clare
made her escape. It was her dead self that crossed
the threshold, and a new life began with her flight.
With a few " holy companions " she passed into

n6 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the silent night, fled through the dark streets under
the city gates down through the olive groves to the
monastery of the Little Portion. Francis and the
brothers came out to meet her, bearing tapers.
The light flickered on her pale oval face, shone on
her golden hair, flashed in the jewels of the rich robe
which she still wore. " Do with me as thou wilt 1 "
she cried to Francis. " I am thine ! My will is
consecrated to God ! It is no longer my own."
The brothers filed into the choir of the lighted
chapel ; Clare tore off her rich silks and brocades,
and threw her jewels on the floor. With his own hand
Francis cut off her hair, and cast over her for gar-
ment a piece of sackcloth tied with a knotted rope.
The brothers' tapers still light up for us with bright
gleam and dark shadow that scene in all its vivid
concrete detail ; we see the faces tense with triumph
and emotion, we feel the overwhelming exaltation
of spirit. Then once more Clare went out into the
dark night, this time with Francis as companion,
went out the bride of Christ, the dedicated virgin
of God. Between these two souls that had gone
together through such an experience there was a
bond that could never be broken ; and because
Francis was beyond all a poet, a poet who lived out
in his life all the poetry and beauty and passion of
his nature, we can guess dimly the high spiritual
romance that bound Francis and Clare. We can
guess dimly only ; for such emotions, fervid, intense
and yet of crystal purity, are far removed from
everyday life. Yet this emotion was not as un-

ST CLARE 117

common as might have been supposed among those
who followed the Religious life ; many examples of
it are to be found even in these pages. But the
spiritual love of Francis for Clare and of Clare for
Francis stands out for all time as something typical
and apart. Francis was so unique in the loveliness
of his life and Clare was so steadfast and loyal to
the difficult end, that all the incidents of their
intercourse are lit with a kind of radiant illumination.

We have to-day largely lost the ambition — almost
lost the conception of purity of body, mind and soul.
We can hardly understand the refinement of an
emotion purged of all material adulteration. Chas-
tity may not have been much practised in mediaeval
times, but it was at least worshipped as an ideal.
No mean ambitions, no sordid cares, no unworthy
desires marred the lives of Francis and his earliest
followers : the edge of feeling was unblunted by
coarse usage, and all the instruments of sense were
bright and sharp. We venture to suggest that
Clare may have found in the love of Francis a
higher consummation than Heloi'se found in the love
of Abelard. In the love of Francis and Clare,
intense, constant, understanding, self had no part;
but the rarest natures only could rise to such heights.

On the night of Palm Sunday, after her profession,
Francis took Clare to a convent of Benedictine nuns
until such time as he could prepare a house for her.
Relatives and friends, incensed at her flight, came on
Holy Monday in force to compel her to return with
them. She clung to the altar cloth, and they used

n8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

such violence that it was pulled half away. Uncover-
ing her shaven head, she cried out that Christ had
called her to His service and that she was vowed to
Him. That her father was finally reconciled to her
action is proved by the fact that he bequeathed to
her his fortune — which fortune Clare, in obedience
to the Franciscan rule, sold and gave to the poor.

A fortnight after Clare's profession, Clare's younger
sister, Agnes, a girl of no more than fourteen, fled from
home, and, throwing herself into Clare's arms, prayed
that they might never be separated any more. Her
uncle with twelve men-at-arms followed to the
convent to force Agnes home. The soldiers seized
the girl and dragged her so roughly down the moun-
tain path that the way was marked with blood.
Then the legend tells how Agnes became as lead in
their arms, so that they could carry her no farther.
The soldiers, seeing in this the finger of God, fled
terrified ; and Clare, with tears of happiness, brought
her sister back to the convent, where, a few days
later, Francis gave her the habit and received her
vows.

Adjoining the chapel of St Damian on the olive-
clad hillside was a little stone dwelling, and here
Francis installed Clare and Agnes — the two first
nuns of the Second Order of Franciscans. Heloise
and her nuns lived in the buildings that had been
made by Abelard's disciples ; Clare was given the
chapel that Francis had restored with his own hands.
Daily she prayed before that very crucifix from
whose wood a voice had sounded : " Francis, go repair

ST CLARE 119

My house." The crucifix is still preserved in the
chapel of St Clare in St George's Church, Assisi,
and Clare's convent at St Damian remains in its
primitive condition to this day — a small grey build-
ing, the pomegranates flowering against its walls of
irregular stones, set amongst ancient olive-trees.
We may still see her refectory with its low-arched
ceiling ; her little choir with its worm-eaten stalls ;
the heavily raftered dormitory reached by a flight
of winding steps ; her oratory, and the tiny terrace
where she made a little garden. For Francis willed
in his monasteries that " Brother Gardener ought
always to make a fair little garden in some part of
the garden-land, setting and planting therein of all
sweet-smelling herbs, and of all herbs that do bring
forth fair flowers." From her terrace Clare could just
see St Mary of the Little Portion, and her thoughts
and prayers often tended towards the grey-robed
brother there, who, next to God, was the light of her
existence.

Clare was soon joined by her sister Beatrice, and
by her mother, and by sixteen other ladies of her
kindred. For the first three years the sisters of the
order do not appear to have been enclosed. We read
in a letter written in 1216, and still preserved in
the library at Ghent : " The men are called Friars
Minor . . . the women dwell in hospices in the
environs of cities and live in common on the fruit of
their labour, but accept no money." It is certain
that Francis used to send the sick to Clare for her
to cure them. In Celano's Life we read that she

120 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

effected several cures by making the sign of the
cross.

There is a legend — it cannot be traced to any
definite authority, but it is still told among the
Franciscans themselves. We quote from Beryl de
Selincourt's book on the Homes of the First Fran-
ciscans : " Francis and Clare walked one day to Spello,
a little town some seven or eight miles from Assisi
in the Spoletan valley where the Camaldulese nuns
of the Vallegloria convent desired to come under the
Franciscan rule. They went into the inn for food,
and mine host was an evil-minded man, who grumbled
that it was scandalous for a man and woman to go
tramping about the country together under cover
of religion. . . . Francis was sad that such things
should be thought, and when they left Spello Francis
bade Clare return by the upper path which runs along
the hillside, and he himself took the road along the
valley. Now Clare had not heard the scandal and
did not understand, and she called down to Francis
to know when they should meet again. And Francis,
in confusion, put her off with the phrase : ' When the
roses blow on Mount Subasio.' And Clare went
forth puzzled, but as she walked, the snow melted
before her feet, and behold ! briars were blooming
in the pathway ; and joyfully she picked the flowers
and put them in her robe, and gathered it up and
ran down the hillside to St Francis, and showed him
the roses. And he was convinced that pureminded-
ness should triumph, and together they walked back
to Assisi." This legend must have been widespread,

ST CLARE 121

for Clare is often pictoriaUy represented with roses
in her lap and her bare feet in the snow.

In the year 1219 the Poor Clares were enclosed.
Lay-brothers, called Questors, collected alms for
them — the bread and broken meat on which the
sisters were to live — while certain Friars Minor, called
Zealots of the Poor Ladies, ministered to their
spiritual need. A small hospice was usually built
near the convent for these brothers to inhabit.

Francis himself was long divided in mind as to
whether a life of action in the outer world or a life
of prayer in the monastery were the higher life.
Brother Giles, one of the earliest Franciscans, has
described to us in perfect language the joy of con-
templation : " Quoth Brother Giles to a certain
brother : ' Father, gladly would I know what
is contemplation.' And that brother replied :
' Father, I do not yet know.' Then said Brother
Giles : ' Meseemeth that the grade of contemplation
is a heavenly fire and a sweet devotion of the Holy
Spirit and a rapture and uplifting of the mind intoxi-
cated in the contemplation of the unspeakable savour
of the divine sweetness, and a happy, peaceful and
sweet delight of soul, that is rapt and uplifted in
great marvel at the glorious things of heaven above ;
and a burning sense within of that celestial glory
unspeakable.' '

There was a time when Francis longed to give
himself to the contemplative life, and in much doubt
he sent for Brother Masseo and bespake him thus :
" Go unto Sister Clare and tell her on my behalf that

she with certain of her most spiritual companions
should pray devoutly unto God, that it may please
Him to show me which of the twain is the better :
whether to give myself to preaching, or wholly unto
prayer. And then go to Brother Silvester and tell
the like to him." When Brother Masseo returned
St Francis received him with exceeding great love,
washing his feet, and making ready for him his meal ;
and after he had eaten, St Francis called Brother
Masseo into the wood ; and there kneeled down before
him and drew back his hood, stretching out his arms
in the shape of a cross, and asked him : " What
has my Lord Jesus Christ commanded that I should
do ? " Replied Brother Masseo : " As unto Brother
Silvester, so likewise unto Sister Clare and her sisters
has Christ made answer and revealed : that it is His
will that thou go throughout the world and preach,
since he has chosen thee, not for thyself alone, but
for the salvation of others."

In assigning to the sisters the life of contemplation
and prayer, Francis may well have conceived that
to them had been given the better part. But as
we shall see, their life was no life of idleness, and
strenuous labour alternated with religious exercises.

The rule of the Clares was a strict one — even in
this century, the Poor Clares have only one meal a
day, except on Sundays, go barefoot, and endure
much hardship. But in early times the sisters were
not wholly cut off from the world. We have already
told how Francis sent Clare the sick to be cured ;
the citizens of Assisi were continually coming to the

ST CLARE 123

gates of the convent to consult Clare and ask her
help ; Francis entered freely into the convent, that
he might talk with her over all the thorny points
concerning the constitution of the order, that he
might tell her of his spiritual experience, and ask her
counsel in the ordering of his life. Other friars had
also access within the walls, and in connexion with
this we must relate a curious and significant incident,
which illustrates Clare's unbounded courage in up-
holding the Franciscan ideal. Gregory IX., desiring
a stricter enclosure for the nuns, decreed that the
friars were not to go in and out of the convent under
the excuse that they were ministering to the sisters
the word of God. Clare immediately resorted to an
expedient which to-day is known by the name of
the Hunger Strike. " If the holy fathers may not
feed us with the bread of life," she said, " they shall
not minister to us the bread that perishes." The
community therefore refused to eat, and, had not the
Pope quickly reversed this decree, no Clare would
have been left alive. The Pope could defy Bar-
barossa, but he had to submit to the heroism and
endurance of this handful of women.

The first religious labour that had occupied
Francis had been the repair of a ruined church :
throughout his life it was his ardent wish to see
churches clean and well ordered — we read of his
sweeping them out with his own hands. Clare and
her sisters entered enthusiastically into this work,
weaving church linen and doing church embroidery.
Clare, when she was severely ill, had herself propped

124 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

up in bed with pillows in order to continue this work
entrusted to her by Francis.

The life of the sisters was thus made up of labour
and prayer, and they practised austerities unusual
for women. It is important, however, to emphasize
the fact that Francis himself was strongly opposed
to extremes of asceticism. We have already given
his Rule : " Eat what is set before you " ; he went so far
as to tell the brothers that too great abstinence from
food was as harmful as too great superfluity of food :
" For whereas we be held to beware of superfluity
of food, the which is a hindrance both to the body and
soul, so likewise, and even more, ought we to beware
of too great abstinence, seeing that the Lord willeth
mercy and not sacrifice." He strictly forbade the
wearing of hair-shirts or of spiked chains or other
forms of discipline. A brother was not to wear
aught save his habit only underneath next the
skin. With regard to the Clares, " knowing that from
the beginning of their conversion they had led a life
passing strait and poverty-stricken, he was moved
with pity and compassion towards them. . . . And
specially did he admonish them that out of such
alms as the Lord might give them they should
cheerfully make provision for their bodies with cheer-
fulness and thanksgiving." Francis did all in his
power to check the asceticism of Clare herself. It
had been her wont to lie on the bare ground, and fast
completely on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
He told her to lie on a sack filled with straw, forbade
the three days' fast, and commanded her to eat at

ST CLARE 125

least once a day. It happened on one occasion that
Clare fell into meditation on the Lord's passion, and
for twenty-four hours neither spoke nor moved ;
and when night came again a devoted daughter lit
a candle and made sign to remind the mother of this
command of Francis. But though Clare practised
such extreme penance, and though she counselled
her disciples to fast daily — i.e. take one meal a day —
except on Sunday and Christmas Day, she also
advocated moderation. She wrote to Agnes of
Bohemia : " But as our flesh is not iron, nor have we
the strength of marble, I beg you earnestly, beloved
sister, to avoid too rigorous abstinence, which I
believe you now observe, so that while you live and
hope in the Lord, you may render Him a service full
of reason, and the sacrifice you offer Him may be
seasoned with the salt of prudence."

The friendship between Francis and Clare has its
most perfect exposition in one lovely story that is
told in the " Fioretti." It is so lovely a story, it
shows us with such directness and simplicity the
heights of love and devotion, that if it is not true
literally, it is true symbolically, and enshrines in a
never-to-be-forgotten picture the purity of these
two souls. " When as St Francis was at Assisi,
oftentimes he visited St Clare, and gave her holy
admonishments. And she having exceeding great
desire once to break bread with him, ofttimes
besought him thereto, but he was never willing to
grant her this consolation, wherefore his companions,
beholding the desire of St Clare, said unto St Francis :

126 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

' Father, it doth appear to us that this severity
accordeth not with heavenly charity ; since thou
givest not ear unto St Clare, a virgin so saintly, so
beloved of God, in so slight a matter as breaking bread
with thee, and above all bearing in mind that she
through thy preaching abandoned the riches and
pomps of the world. And of a truth had she asked
of thee a greater boon than this, thou oughtest so
to do unto thy spiritual plant.' Then replied St
Francis : ' Doth it seem good to you that I should
grant her prayer ? ' Replied his companions :
' Yea, father, fitting it is that thou grant her this boon
and consolation.' Then spake St Francis : ' Since
it seems good to you it seems so likewise unto me.
But that she may be the more consoled, I will that
this breaking of bread take place in St Mary of the
Angels ; for she has been long shut up in St Damian
so that it will rejoice her to see again the house of
St Mary, where her hair was shorn away and where
she became the Bride of Jesu Christ ; and there let
us eat together in the name of God.' When came the
day ordained by him St Clare with one companion
passed forth from out the convent, and, with the
companions of St Francis to bear her company,
came unto St Mary of the Angels, and devoutly
saluted the Virgin Mary before the altar, where she
had been shorn and veiled ; so they conducted her to
see the house, until such time as the hour for breaking
bread was come. And in the meantime St Francis
let make ready the table on the bare ground, as he
was wont to do. And the hour of breaking bread

ST CLARE 127

being come, they set themselves down together,
St Francis and St Clare, and one of the companions
of St Francis with the companion of St Clare, and
all the other companions, took each his place with all
humility. And at the first dish St Francis began
to speak of God so sweetly, so sublimely and so
wondrously, that the fulness of divine grace came
down on them, and they were all rapt in God. And
as they were thus rapt, with eyes and hands uplift
to heaven, the folk of Assisi and Bettona and the
country round about, saw that St Mary of the Angels
and all the house and the wood that was just hard
by the house, were burning brightly, and it seemed
as it were a great fire that filled the church and the
house and the whole wood together ; for the which
cause the folk of Assisi ran thither in great haste for
to quench the flames, believing of a truth that the
whole place was all on fire. But coming close up to
the house and finding no fire at all, they entered
within, and found St Francis and St Clare and all their
company in contemplation rapt in God and sitting
around that humble board. Whereby of a truth
they understood that this had been a heavenly flame
and no earthly one at all, which God had let appear
miraculously for to show and signify the fire of love
divine wherewith the souls of those holy brothers
and holy nuns were all aflame ; wherefore they gat
them gone with great consolation in their hearts
and with holy edifying." This is too lovely, we
think, to be one of the many inventions of man. The
food spread on the bare ground, the grey-robed

128 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

brothers and sisters, the stillness, the oneness, the
uplifting that took the physical effect of fire — in all
this there is a purity, a radiance, that would seem to
raise it into a domain even above imagination.

St Mary of the Angels has no more fragrant
memory than this sacramental meal of Francis and
Clare : St Damian, too, gains a special tenderness
by reason of those forty days that Francis lay, sick
almost unto death, in a little wattle hut under the
convent walls. Weak, sleepless, nerve-exhausted,
he suffered cruel bodily pain, and Clare nursed him,
soothing him with gentle ministrations, putting
about him an atmosphere of quiet and of peace,
restoring confidence and hope. If their companion-
ship did not this time show in physical flame, it
engendered a spiritual flame, whose visible effects
have come down to us in a poem, joyous, loving,
intimate , ' ' The Canticle of Brother Sun. ' ' Not only is
this song precious because of its beauty and because
it is the only song of Francis's that we possess ; the
circumstances in which it was written give it an
additional halo. For this song of rapture was born
out of sharp suffering ; this chant of kinship was
inspired by weeks of exquisite tenderness. We fancy
that the voice of Clare mingles in the verses :

'-' Praised be thou, my Lord, with all thy creatures, especially
milord Brother Sun, that dawns and lightens us.

And he, beautiful and radiant with great splendour, signifies
thee, Most High.

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars that
thou hast made, bright and precious and beautiful,

ST CLARE 129

Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Wind, and for the air and
cloud and the clear sky, and for all weathers through
which thou givest sustenance to the creatures.-

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Water, that is very useful
and humble and precious and chaste.

Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Fire, through whom
Thou dost illumine the night, and comely is he, and glad
and bold and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, for Sister our Mother Earth : : .!l

And finally he has praise for Sister Death.

We cannot help comparing this canticle of St
Francis with a Bengali poem of the people given by
Margaret Noble in her " Web of Indian Life." There
is in the Bengali poem greater discrimination as to
the relationship of the elements to ourselves, and
they are more strongly infused with the Deity ;
but both poems have the same sympathy, the same
sensitive understanding, the same quick response.

" Oh, Mother Earth, Father Sky,
Brother Wind, Friend Light,
Sweetheart Water,

Here take my last salutation with folded hands,
For to-day I am melting away into the supreme,
Because my heart became pure
And all delusion vanished
Through the power of your good company."

Francis often made songs for the Poor Ladies,
as we read in " The Mirror of Perfection " : " After
that the Blessed Francis had made his ' Praises
unto the Lord of His creatures,' he made also certain
holy words with music for the_ comforting and
edification of the Poor Ladies, knowing that they

130 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

were sore troubled by reason of his infirmity. And
for that he was not able to visit them in person, he
sent the words unto them by the companions. . . .
For he perceived that their conversion and holy
conversation did not only tend to the exaltation of
the brethren's religion, but to the exceeding great
edification of the Church Universal."

In very truth Clare sorely needed all the help that
he could give her. For " in the week that the
blessed Francis did pass away," writes Brother
Leo, " the Lady Clare, the first sapling of the Poor
Sisters of St Damian of Assisi, the chief est rival of
the Blessed Francis in the observance of gospel
perfection, fearing lest she should die before him,
for at that time both lay grievously sick, wept most
bitterly and would not be comforted for that she
thought that she should not see before her departure
her one father after God, the Blessed Francis, her
comforter and master and her first founder in the
grace of God. And therefore did she signify this
unto the Blessed Francis by a certain brother,
which when the holy man did hear, forasmuch as he
did love her above all other with fatherly affection,
he was moved with pity towards her. But consider-
ing that the thing she would, to wit, to see him,
could not be brought about, for her consolation and
that of all the sisterhood, he did write unto her
his blessing in a letter, and did absolve her of all
defect. . . . (He) said unto the brother whom he
had sent : ' Go and tell Sister Clare to lay aside
all sorrow and sadness for that she cannot see me

ST CLARE 131

just now, forasmuch as in truth let her know before
her departure both she herself and my sisters shall
see me, and shall be greatly comforted as concerning
me.' ' Little did Clare realize the import of these
words, nor understand what sad comfort they
offered her. " But it came to pass when a little
while afterward the Blessed Francis had passed
away in the night, that on the morrow the whole
people and clergy of Assisi came and took away his
holy body from the place where he had passed away
with hymns and lauds, each one bearing aloft
branches of trees, and thus did they carry the same
by the will of the Lord to St Damian, so that the
word might be fulfilled which the Lord had spoken
by the Blessed Francis for the comfort of His
daughters and His handmaidens. And removing
the iron lattice whereby the sisters were wont to
communicate and to hear the word of God, the
brethren took the holy body from the bier, and
held it between their arms for a long space at the
opening until that the Lady Clare and her sisters
had been comforted by the sight thereof and could
kiss the wounded hands, albeit they were overcome
and full of sorrow and many tears seeing themselves
made orphans of the consolations and admonitions
of so dear a father."

There are other accounts, more detailed and
embroidered, but in this story, given in " The Mirror
of Perfection," we have the high dignity, the restraint,
of a greater grief. No ordinary gestures of sorrow
could express the loss that Clare had sustained.

132 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Clare was thirty-two when Francis died. Already;
even during his lifetime, he had had the grief of
seeing the cause for which he had fought so valiantly
gradually losing ground, the Lady Poverty despised
and neglected, and elaborations, mitigations, altera-
tions, introduced into his Rule. " He also scented
aforehand the times that in no long space were to
come," says Brother Leo, " wherein, he foreknew
that the knowledge which puffeth up should be the
occasion of falling." Clare lived into those times ;
and with all the tenacity of her strength she set
herself against the innovations. Not Francis
himself laboured more courageously in defence of
Lady Poverty. How great was her task, and how
soon after his death a proposal was made to reverse
his ideals, is shown in the following incident. In
1228 Pope Gregory came to Assisi for the canoniza-
tion of Francis. Actually on the eve of the cere-
mony that was to confer on Francis the title of Saint,
the Pope tried to induce Clare to be unfaithful to
the vows that Francis had imposed upon her. It
did not seem to him right that women should support
the rigours of absolute poverty. He visited Clare,
and begged her to accept some endowment for her
convent. "If it be thy vow that hindereth thee
from doing so," he added, " we absolve thee from
it." " Holy father," she replied, " absolve me
from my sins if thou wilt, but I desire not to be
absolved from following Jesus Christ."

Clare's influence must have been an exquisite
one ; all who met her carried from her presence an

ST. CLARE HOLDING HER EMBLEMS, WITH ST. ELIZABETH
From the painting by Tiblrio if Assist

ST CLARE 133

impression of something rare, pure, fragrant; all
yielded to her desires. Innocent III. had granted
to Clare when she became abbess in 1215 the title
for her community of Poor Ladies. Gregory IX.
granted the Clares the right never to be forced to
receive possessions by the famous bull, " Privilegium
Paupertatis " (1228) . As it contained a privilege
never before given by the Holy See, the Pope wrote
the first letters of the bull with his own hand. The
original bull is still preserved in the choir of the
Clares at Assisi. But it was not till the day before
her death in 1252 that Clare received the bull of
the then Pope Innocent IV. confirming the definitive
Rule of St Clare, and sanctioning the practice of
poverty in all its pristine purity. Clare is said to
have died clasping in her arms this bull, for which
she had fought so untiringly. The original docu-
ment was found as recently as 1893 at the convent
of St Clare at Assisi, wrapped inside an old habit
of the saint !

Clare during her lifetime founded convents at
Perugia, Arezzo, Padua, Rome, Venice; Mantua,
Bologna, Spoleto, Milan, Siena, Pisa, and many
of the principal towns in Germany. There were
in later times sixty-five houses of Poor Clares in
England. The word "Minories" is a corruption of
Minoresses, Sisters Minor or Clares, who had a house
in that district of London.

Clare was in very truth as she has been called,
" the valiant woman of the Franciscan movement."
" In some respects," says Fr. Paschal Robinson, a

134 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Franciscan himself, and the latest editor of Thomas
of Celano's Life, " she was even more virile than
Francis himself. Not only did she face with unflinch-
ing moral courage principalities and powers, and
wrest from them the privileges she desired, but her
physical courage was put to the severest tests, and
emerged triumphant."

It is a curious fact that the Franciscan story seems
detached from the history of the time. It is of
course mediaeval in many of its aspects, and yet it
stands apart from current ambitions and interests.
The Franciscan movement appears a sudden spon-
taneous development and loveliness, nor can we
easily say from what sources its roots were nourished
and its growth stimulated. Nevertheless, the
thirteenth century was a period of warfare that
devastated Europe ; Pope and Emperor were at
daggers drawn ; nations were divided against
nations, cities against cities, nobles against nobles,
classes against classes. The story of Clare now
suddenly intersects the history of her time.

Frederick Barbarossa, the excommunicated
Emperor, employed in his warfare against the Pope
certain mercenaries called " Saracens " — the descend-
ants of the Saracens who had settled in Sicily and
Calabria. After a victory of the imperial troops,
these " Saracens " overran Italy, committing fright-
ful devastation. Women in convents had special
reason to dread the coming of such invaders. The
following incident is told in the " official " Life of
St CJare, and tradition offers many variations on the

ST CLARE 135

central theme. We give, as most accurate, Thomas
of . Celano's account. Assisi was assailed by the
Saracens ; the nunnery of St Damian was sur-
rounded ; the Saracens were scaling its walls.
Clare was on a bed of sickness ; for months she had
not left her bed. The nuns went in tears and terror
to their mother ; she caused herself to be borne to
the chapel and, taking " a silver casket enclosed in
ivory in which the body of the Holy of Holies was
most devoutly kept," she prostrated herself before
the Lord in prayer, and prayed to Christ to defend
His servants. " Presently He sent her of His
special grace a voice as of a little child which sounded
in her ears : ' I will always defend thee.' ' My Lord,'
she said, ' and if it please Thee protect the city, for
it supporteth us for love of Thee.' And the Lord
answered : ' It will be troubled, but it will be defended
by My protection.' Then the virgin, raising her
tearful face, comforted the weeping, saying : ' Rest
assured, I bid you, little daughters, that ye shall
suffer no harm ; only trust in Christ.' " Taking
the pyx in her hands, she approached the point of
danger. The Saracens had climbed over the outer
wall, and were now scaling the inner wall. But at
the sight of Clare holding the pyx a sudden terror
fell upon them and they fled in confusion. A
traditional story tells that the Saracens were routed
by the appearance of Clare at a window holding the
pyx. The window is pointed out to this day ; and
Clare is often represented in art holding a pyx in
her hands. In commemoration of this event, an

136 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

ancient statute decreed that the magistrates of
Assisi, with the clergy, confraternities and citizens,
were to assemble annually on the 22nd of June
at the church of St Clare, and to proceed in
procession to St Damian, there to celebrate a
solemn mass of thanksgiving for the deliverance of
the city by the prayers of St Clare. And further,
the Poor Clares were granted the privilege of exposing
the Sacrament on their altars without the inter-
position of a priest — a privilege no other women
possess.

But if this Little Flower had the strength to meet
storm and tempest without flinching, she possessed
also the tenderer qualities of womanhood. We read
how, in the cold winter nights, she went round the
dormitories putting warm covering on the sleeping
sisters, how gently she nursed the nuns who were
ill, and washed the feet of poor travellers.

It was at St Mary of the Little Portion that Clare
made her profession ; at St Mary's that she cele-
brated the sacramental meal which showed as fire
in all the surrounding country ; at St Mary's that
she passed in spirit her last Christmas on earth
(1252), and Thomas of Celano writes of it as " a
truly wonderful consolation which the Lord granted
her in illness. At the hour of the Nativity," he
says, " when the earth sings with the angels of the
new-born babe, the other Ladies went to the oratory
for matins and left the Mother alone, weighed down
with illness. Clare then began to think on the little
Jesus and to grieve sorely that she might not be

ST CLARE 137

present at His praises, and said, with a sigh : ' Lord
God, behold I am left alone with Thee in this place.'
And lo ! suddenly the wonderful music that was
being sung in the church of St Francis began to
resound in her ears ; she heard the voices of the
friars chanting the Psalter, she listened to the
harmonies of the singers, she even perceived the
sound of the organ. She was by no means so near
to the place that all this could happen in the natural
order, unless either the solemnity was brought
nearer to her by divine influence, or her hearing
was endowed with superhuman power."

We are told in detail — as the mediaeval chronicler
uses — of her death agony, which lasted many days,
and how, two days before her death, Innocent IV.,
who was on his way from Lyons to Perugia, visited
her and gave her his apostolic benediction. Cardinals
and prelates were constantly at her bedside, and
when Brother Rainaldo exhorted her to patience in the
long martyrdom of such great infirmities, she replied :
" Believe me, dearest brother, that ever since the
day I received the grace of vocation from our Lord
through his servant Francis, no suffering hath ever
troubled me, no penance been too hard, no infirmity
too great." As the end approached, many of the
early disciples of Francis gathered about her — Leo
and Angelo, two of the Three Companions, and
Juniper — would that I had a whole forest of such
Junipers ! Francis had been wont to exclaim. The
brothers read aloud to her the Passion of Our Lord
according to St John, as they had done twenty-seven

138 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

years before at St Mary of the Angels when Francis
lay dying. " When brother Juniper, the renowned
jester of the Lord, who often uttered fiery words
of God, appeared amongst them, Clare, filled with
new joy, asked him whether he had anything new at
hand about the Lord. Juniper thereupon opening his
mouth, sent forth like sparks such flaming words from
the furnace of his burning heart that the virgin of
God derived great consolation from what he said.
Then she blessed all who had been kind to her, both
men and women, and invoked a benediction rich
in graces upon all the Ladies of the poor monasteries,
present and to come. As to the rest, who can relate
it without tears ? Two of the holy companions of
the blessed Francis stood near. One of them, Angelo,
though weeping himself, comforted the rest in their
sorrow. The other, Leo, kissed the bed of the dying
saint." The sisters stood round, trying in vain, as
the rule of the cloister bade, to suppress the violence
of their sorrow. And after watching all night,
towards dawn on the nth of August 1253, one of
them saw through her tears the room fill with a
multitude of virgins, clothed in white garments and
wearing golden crowns. As Clare's soul passed away,
the virgins of the vision covered the body with a
mantle of wondrous beauty. On the twelfth, the
day kept as her festival, Clare was buried. Her body
was first laid in the church of St George within the
city walls, while the great church of St Clare was
being erected in her honour. In 1260 her remains were
translated with great pomp to this church, and buried

ST CLARE 139

deep beneath the high altar. In the same year the
Poor Clares moved to a new convent that had been
made for them in the city, partly for greater security,
and partly that they might be near the body of their
foundress. Clare was canonized in 1255 by Alex-
ander IV.

It is much more difficult to form a clear picture
of Clare the woman than of Francis the man. The
endeavour of Brother Thomas was to write a devout
book for the edification of his readers, and he
followed as far as possible the conventional tradi-
tions of sainthood. But strong individual character
breaks even through the official Life ; courage to
resist, tenacity to secure, unswerving loyalty to the
ideals of Francis. Clare had besides a fragrance of
personality that won all comers ; popes, cardinals,
prelates, loved her, we read, with fatherly affection,
or with mystical devotion. It is when we wander in
body or in thought through the little deserted rooms
of St Damian that we can best conjure up the tall
figure in the grey habit, praying, teaching the sisters,
passing from oratory to choir, tending her terrace
garden, bedridden in later years, propped up and with
failing fingers labouring at her needle. Here at
St Damian, in little bare stony cells, where rough
windows gave on " slender landscape and austere,"
Clare worshipped the Lady Poverty, and that way
found, as Francis had found, happiness ; for all her
biographers tell us that her face was lighted by
interior joy, " like sunshine " we imagine " behind
a white flower."

140 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Without Clare the Franciscan story loses half its
loveliness. Francis was her inspiration, we know,
but we can only guess how she inspired and influenced
him, bringing into his life an exquisite element of
womanhood, without which it could not have been
complete. However heroic she proved herself in
later years, fighting it may be for a cause that was to
some extent lost, it is in her early years that we are
fain to remember her : as one of that little company
of brothers and sisters whose lives are sweet for all
time, set in an atmosphere of peace and of light and
of love.

BEFORE we endeavour to describe the work of
Dame Juliana of Norwich, it seems well to give
some indication of the condition of thought at the
time she lived, to tell a little about others who then
attempted the solitary life, and to discover, if possible,
some of the characteristics distinguishing English
mysticism in the fourteenth century from the
mysticism of European countries.

The mystic uses varying shapes, varying symbols,
often inappropriate, necessarily imperfect, to convey
his transcendental experiences to those who have
not travelled his path. The images are coloured by
temperament, by circumstance, by period. In the
fierce Italian cities the symbols have the semblance of
blood and fire ; austere Spain touches its images with
solemn gloom, and gives us the Dark Night of the soul ;
modern Ireland takes dim mists and pale flowers as
her raiment for clothing the unseen — her primroses
are " but a veil, A rag of beauty, hiding immortal
brows From easily daunted eyes." But mediaeval
England, with its zest for outdoor life, its delight in
exterior nature, uses symbols that are racy of the soil,
that have a savour of sweet earth ; often spiritual
experience is expressed in terms of physical sensa-
141

142 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

tion. Thus the " Father of English mysticism,"
Richard Rolle of Hampole, translates his spiritual
experience into the symbols of calor, canor, dulcor,
Fire, Song, Sweetness — a Fire and a Sweetness
actually felt in the body, a divine melody actually
chiming in the soul.

The effect of so expressing the truths of another
world is to convey to the reader a sense of their
immediacy. The divine is here and now ; Paradise
is in startling proximity with England ; Jacob's
ladder, in Francis Thompson's memorable phrase,
is pitched "betwixt heaven and Charing Cross."
The use of the vernacular further intensifies this
effect ; for in England as well as on the Continent
explorers of the spiritual world were beginning at this
time to employ their native tongue as more apt to
bring home their experience than the traditional Latin.

This closeness to Mother Earth, this application of
the symbols of physical sensation, gives to English
mysticism a homeliness which is all its own. This
homeliness finds its tenderest consummation in the
description of the relationship between Creator and
creature. It is the relationship of father and mother
to child, in all its loveliness and trust. " As verily
as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother,"
writes Dame Juliana. He is " the might and the
goodness of the fatherhood," and " the wisdom of
the motherhood." Indeed, the whole concern of the
English mystics is the love of God for man, and not
the love of man for God. The realization of God's
love has come to them with a fulness that pulses

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 143

through all their writings a very tide of joy. There
is no soul too weak, too sinful, too miserable, for
God's mercy and healing. Thus English mysticism
has given us a literature unequalled in buoyancy and
exultation, at the opposite pole from the far more ex-
tensive literature of self-abasement, which has sprung
largely from the terror of spiritual pride. But even
spiritual pride is not always to be condemned without
appeal, and the following passage from " The Flowing
Light of God," a book by Mechthild of Magdeburg,
a nun of the thirteenth century, may serve to show
how lovely and tender even arrogance may be : —

" Drawn by yearning, the soul comes flying like
an eagle towards the sun. ' See how she mounts to
us, she who wounded me ' (it is the Lord who is
speaking), 'she has thrown away the ashes of the
world, overcome lust, and trodden the lion of pride
beneath her feet. Thou eager huntress of love, what
bringest thou to me ? '

" ' Lord, I bring Thee my treasure which is greater
than mountains, wider than the world, deeper than
the sea, higher than the clouds, more beautiful than
the sun, more manifold than the stars, and outweighs
the riches of the earth ! '

" ' Image of my Divinity, ennobled by my man-
hood, adorned by my Holy Spirit, how is thy treasure
called ? '

" ' Lord, it is called my heart's desire ; I have with-
drawn it from the world, withheld it from myself,
forbidden it all creatures. Lord, where shall I lay it ? '

144 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

" ' Thou shall lay thy heart's desire nowhere else
than in my divine heart and on my human breast.
There only wilt thou be comforted and kissed by
my spirit.' '

English anchoresses have less dazzle of vision and
they speak a simpler language ; but they portray
with equal tenderness if less splendour this sense of
intimate personal relationship. It is even found in
the fragmentary wreckage of lost works. Of Margery
Kempe, Anchoress of Lynn, we know nothing beyond
what is contained in a tiny quarto of eight pages
printed by Wynkyn de Worde : " Here begynneth
a shorte treatyse of contemplacyon taught by our
lorde Jhesu cryste, or taken out of the boke of
Margerie Kempe of Lynn." An extract will suffice
to show the thoughts that dwelt with Dame Margery
in her narrow cell. Jesus is speaking :

" I assure thee in thy mind, if it were possible for
Me to suffer pain again, as I have done before, Me
were lever to suffer as much pain as ever I did for
thy soul alone, rather than thou shouldst depart from
Me everlastingly."

And Dame Juliana, Anchoress of Norwich, writes :

" Then said Jesus, our kind Lord : // thou art pleased,
I am pleased : it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying
to me that ever suffered I passion for thee ; and if I
might suffer more, I would suffer more."

Seldom has the love of Christ for man been more
poignantly realized. For one soul alone He would

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 145

have suffered " as much pain as ever I did " : for
another : " If I might suffer more I would suffer
more . ' ' Yet in these thoughts of the anchoresses there
was no spiritual pride ; surpassing love was around
and about them, and in its brightness human fail-
ings faded away.

It was the solitary life in England that produced
this attitude of soul ; the solitary life that gave us
the writings of the too little known Richard Rolle,
hermit of Hampole. His story is one of profound
interest on which we must pause for a moment :
his burning experience stands out sharp against the
foil of an age given to many-coloured luxury, an age
black with misery and wrong. In a time of rapacious
self-seeking he preached in the wilderness the doc-
trines of love and of peace ; he wakened men once
more to the knowledge that they possess not only the
eyes of the body, that look without, but the eyes of
the soul, that look within.

From every point of view the story of Richard
Rolle is full of significance. Mediaeval mysticism
in England claims him as its founder ; on the
scientific side of mysticism, the stages of his explora-
tions into the unseen are marked with extraordinary
lucidity ; on the devotional side, his works show an
insight, a range, a passionate fervour that makes them
live to-day. Literature remembers him as the first
writer of mediaeval English prose, and as to his life,
Mr C. Horstman, editor of his works, calls him " one
of the noblest men of his time, yea, of history . . .
a hero, a saint, a martyr." For many centuries his
K

146 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

story has been lost in obscurity ; now the mists begin
to clear away, and we see, sharp-cut as in a crystal,
the little remote scenes in which he lived and strove,
scenes that have a significance more poignant and
more profound than the brilliant pageantry of popes
and kings. We are in the year 1319, at Thornton
in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

We see a young man, tall, fair of complexion. He
is a student of Oxford, and went to the university with
that same zeal for learning which distinguished the
Clerk in Chaucer's " Prologue." Oxford was in the
zenith of its influence, and entirely under the do-
minion of the scholastic philosophy, which had been
introduced there by the famous Duns Scotus (died
1308). Against this formalism, this intellectualism,
this deification of reason, Rolle's whole nature
revolted. In secret he studied the mystics, St Ber-
nard, Richard of St Victor, Bona Ventura. In his
quiet Yorkshire home he longed to take some
dramatic step, to express by some exterior action
the devotion, the fervour that consumed him. At last
the tension became past bearing. From his sister
he borrows two kirtles, a white one and a grey one ;
he takes a hood of his father's. He cuts off the
buttons of the white frock and the sleeves of the grey,
dons the white one next his skin and the grey one
over it, and puts on the hood. His sister, frightened
by his wild looks, cries out that he is mad. Clad
thus in the semblance of a hermit, he rushes from
the house.

The scene changes : it is the Eve of the Assump-

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 147

tion : we are in a church on John de Dalton's estate
(probably at Topcliffe near Thirsk). Suddenly a
figure clad in strange guise enters the church and
takes his place on the spot where Lady Dalton is wont
to pray. On her arrival her servants wish to drive
him off, but, seeing him so earnest in his devotions,
she will not let him be disturbed. Her sons recognize
him as Richard Rolle, whom they had known at
Oxford. " Next morning he puts on a surplice and
sings in the choir at matins and Mass ; after the
gospel he, having first obtained the benediction of
the priest, ascends the pulpit and delivers a sermon,
so moving the hearts of the hearers that they all wept,
and declared they had never heard anything like it
before. After Mass, John de Dalton invites him to
dinner : he hides himself in an outhouse from sheer
humility, but is found and placed at table before
the sons of the house. . . . After dinner the host
takes him aside, asks him whether he is really the
son of William Rolle, and having satisfied himself
as to the sincerity of his purpose, invites him to
remain in the house, and provides him with the proper
habit of a hermit, a solitary cell on his estate and his
daily sustenance." J

This profession of Richard Rolle 's is as dramatic
as any in the annals of Christianity. The picture is
full of local mediaeval colour ; we are in an age when
it is still possible, though, as we shall see, increasingly
difficult, for devotion to take this fantastic shape.
The story of Rolle's life, full of grotesque incident, of

1<( Richard Rolle and his Followers;" Ct Horstmans

148

tragic conflict, of high romance and endeavour,
gives us illuminating sidelights into the opinions of
the time ; but in the story of his soul we follow a
more trodden path, a path taken by the mystics of
all ages.

During the four years that Richard Rolle remained
in the cell on John de Dalton's estate, he passed
through the three stages of mysticism described by
St Augustine : the stage of Purgation, the stage of
Illumination, the stage of Union. Some time after
having attained the stage of Union, he realized the
joy which he described in the terms color, canor,
dulcor. " Sitting one day in meditation in a certain
church," we read, " he suddenly felt in him a strange
and pleasant heat, as of real, sensible fire, so that he
often felt his breast to see if the heat was caused by
some exterior cause ; but finding that it arose from
within, and not from the flesh, and was a gift from
his Maker, he was all liquefied in love, and the more so
because with the cauma he felt a dulcor inexpressibly
sweet." But more persistent than the fire and the
sweetness chimed that " musica spiritualis " that
"invisibilis melodia," that "clamour," "mirth"
and " sound " of heaven, which is the perpetual
theme of Richard Rolle's writings.

Carlyle has said that all deep thought is music ;
and highly charged emotion utters itself in rhythmic
speech, and touches all the organ-notes of language.
Song, too, is the natural expression of joy. The
ancients held that the spheres moved to music ;
and the music of the soul seems to the mystic a

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 149

remote echo of far-off harmonies. " Song I call,"
says Richard Rolle, " when in a plenteous soul the
sweetness of eternal love with burning is taken, and
thought into song is turned, and the mind into full
sweet sound is changed." His soul was " as the
nightingale, that loves song and melody, and fails for
great love." And as Rolle heard song within, so
he uttered it without, in lyrics of great passion and
beauty. His own writings move, most of them, to
rhythm and have the music of alliteration.

We learn more of this interior music of the soul
from the English mystics of the fourteenth century
than from any other source, and our readers will
perhaps pardon us for dwelling for a moment on a
point of such deep interest. Walter Hilton, a disciple
of Richard Rolle, has treated this subject with much
insight and in a spirit more analytic than that of his
master. In his " Song of Angels " he classifies the
" ghostly sound and sweet songs in divers manners "
that some men feel in their hearts. He is careful
to distinguish the music that is born of God, from the
music that is bom of vain imaginations. Some men
by violence, he says, seek to behold heavenly things
before they are made spiritual by grace ; and by
" indiscreet travailling " they turn the brains in their
heads, and overtax the mights and wits of the soul
and body. "And then, for feebleness of the brain,
him thinketh that he heareth wonderful sounds and
songs. . . .And of this false ground springeth
errors and heresies, false prophecies, presumptions
and false reasonings ... and many other mis-

150 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

chiefs." Hilton describes the song of the soul thus,
which he distinguishes from the song of the angels :
" Some man setteth the thought of his heart only in
the name of Jesu, and steadfastly holdeth it thereto,
and in short time him thinketh that that name turneth
him to great comfort and sweetness, and him thinketh
that the name soundeth in his heart delectably, as
it were a song ; and the virtue of this liking is so
mighty that it draweth in all the wits of the soul
thereto. . . . But this is not angels' song ; but it is
a song of the soul by virtue of the name and by
touching of the good angel."

In a passage of great beauty, Walter Hilton tells
us what is angels' song. " For when the soul is
lifted and ravished out of the sensuality, and out
of the mind of any earthly things, then in great
fervour of love and light (if our Lord vouchsafe)
the soul may hear and feel heavenly sound, made by
the presence of angels in loving of God. Not that
this Song of Angels is the sovereign joy of the soul ;
but for the difference that is between a man's soul
in flesh and an angel, because of uncleanness, a soul
may not hear it, but by ravishing in love, and needeth
to be purified well clean, and fulfilled of much
charity, or (before) it were able to hear heavenly
sound. Now, then, me thinketh that there may no
soul feel verily angels' song nor heavenly sound,
but he be in perfect charity ; though all that are
in perfect charity have not felt it, but only that soul
that is so purified in the fire of love that all earthly
savour is brent out of it, and all mean letting (inter-

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 151

vening hindrance) between the soul and the clean-
ness of angels is broken and put away from it. ...
Who so then will hear angels' song, and not be
deceived by feigning of himself, nor by imagination,
nor by the illusion of the enemy, him behoveth
for to have perfect charity, and that is when all vain
love and dread, vain joy and sorrow, is cast out of
the heart, so that it love nothing but God, nor dread
nothing but God, nor joyeth, nor sorroweth nothing
but in God, or for God."

When the purification of body and soul offered
bliss so exquisite, it is little wonder that the solitary
life made urgent appeal to many great souls. Rolle,
indeed, endeavoured to found a community of
hermits ; but his " Regula Heremitarum " brought
him no disciples, and his own bitter experience
might have taught him that the time for such a
revival on a large scale was past. Solitary places
in England were no longer easy to find because the
greater part of the land had been " acquired "
by private owners ; the Church looked askance at
these laymen, neither monks nor priests, professing
no recognized rule ; there was growing rebellion
amongst the people against the horde of lazy begging
" hermits " who infested the countryside, and who
come under the fierce lash of Piers Plowman in his
Vision. Rolle asked only a lonely place of abode
and some provision for his simple needs ; but pious
friends were hard to find and possibly hard to get
on with, and the hermit moved from manor to
manor, pursued by misunderstanding and calumny.

152 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

The intensity of his message, the asceticism of his
life, made him enemies among the pleasure-loving
clergy ; his continual wanderings were the subject
of severe comment by laymen, as unbefitting his
profession ; all manner of grotesque censures were
levelled against him — he was even accused of being
a glutton. For some years persecution followed
him hard. We find him going from village to
village, talking familiarly with the people, preaching
peace and love. One door of his heart had already
opened upon heaven when he experienced the gifts
of color, canor, dulcor ; another door now opened
upon earth, letting in tender pity for human suffering,
deep sympathy with human needs.

The sensation of interior joy he never lost, but
persecution and trial had been hard to bear. He
was now thirty-five years old, and weary with long
buffeting. It was to a woman that he owed
renewed peace and happiness of mind. Little is
known of Margaret Kirby. She was an anchoress
of Yorkshire, and her cell was twelve miles from
that of Richard Rolle. Between these two existed
one of those lovely spiritual friendships that illumine
so many histories of recluses in the past. She was
his disciple, and he taught her in the art of the love
of God. To her he wrote many of his epistles,
including "The Form of Perfect Living." (It is a
remarkable fact that all his epistles are written to
women.) He had women friends also in certain of
the nunneries of Yorkshire, and during the con-
cluding years of his life he lived in a little cell in

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 153

or near the grounds of the small Cistercian convent
at Hampole. He was regarded by the sisters as a
saint, and acted as their spiritual adviser. He died
in 1379, probably of the Plague, and was buried
at Hampole : the rumour spread that miracles were
worked at his grave, which soon became famous as a
place of pilgrimage.

Even to-day something original, rugged, fiery in
his character arrests and draws us. Himself an
inspired singer in that age that was but just finding
its tongue, he heard, and has described for us more
vividly than any other, the interior music of the
soul — " a heavenly melody, intolerably sweet."

We must refrain, however, from putting final
stress upon these experiences of Fire, Sweetness
and Song, as though their achievement were the
sole aim and object of the English mystic. Mystical
literature offers no more forcible passage on the
danger of visions and auditions than the one written
by Rolle's disciple, Walter Hilton. " If it be so,"
says Hilton, " that thou see any manner of light
or brightness with thy bodily eye or in imagination,
other than every man seeth ; or if thou hear any
pleasant wonderful sounding with thy ear, or in thy
mouth any sweet sudden savour, other than what
thou knowest to be natural, or any heat in thy breast
like fire, or any manner of delight in any part of thy
body, or if a spirit appear bodily to thee as if it
were an angel to comfort thee or teach thee . . .
beware in that time or soon after, and wisely consider
the stirrings of thy heart ; for if by occasion of the

154 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

pleasure and liking thou takes! in the said feeling
or vision, thou feelest thy heart drawn . . . from the
inward desire of virtues and of spiritual knowing
and of feeling of God, for to set the sight of thy heart
and thy affection, thy delight and thy rest, principally
in the said feelings or visions, supposing that to be a
part of heavenly joy or angels' bliss . . . then is this
feeling very suspicious to come from the enemy ;
and therefore, though it be never so liking and
wonderful, refuse it and assent not thereto."

Walter Hilton (d. 1396) head of a house of Augus-
tinian canons at Thurgarton, near Newark, is better
known than Rolle, his master. His " Scale (or
Ladder) of Perfection " was a favourite devotional
book in the Middle Ages. When Thomas More
looked down from the Tower windows upon the
Carthusians going to their death; it was " The Scale
of Perfection " they held in their hands — the very
copy still exists. Hilton, moreover, possesses many
claims to be considered the author of " The Imitation
of Christ," though the case for Thomas a Kempis
rests on stronger evidence. It is, however, interest-
ing to dwell on the thought that the book may have
been written by an English mystic. Hilton's works
are more ecclesiastic than Rolle 's, more informed
with practical sense. They have not the bewilder-
ing fervour, the teeming inspiration of the Hermit
of Hampole, and so they are nearer the compre-
hension of ordinary men. His books, however,
are full of remarkable beauty, of philosophy and
of insight. He can voice a sublime thought in the

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 155

simplest language. " For there is no Gift of God
that is both the Giver and the Gift, but this Gift
of Love." His teaching with regard to the soul
shows how far in advance he was of current opinion.
The soul, he says, is not inside or outside the body.
It is no bodily thing with a spatial existence, but an
invisible life. It would be truer to state that the
body is inside the soul, than the soul inside the body.
Again : " Man is God's image," he says, " not in His
bodily shape without, but in his faculties within."

It is the mystical atmosphere of the fourteenth
century that we have tried to evolve, because it is
in this atmosphere that Dame Juliana breathes.
But it is impossible not to make allusion to the
practical side of religious thought at this period.
Rolle himself, contemplative as he was, admitted
that love must manifest in exterior works. " He
that says he loves God and will not do in deed that
in him is to schew love, tell him that he lies : love
will not be idle : it is working some good evermore ;
if it cease of working, know that it cools and fades
away." And we know that Rolle engaged in active
preaching and admonition. It is, however, the
name of Wyclif that stands out pre-eminent in the
history of the religious movement. The mystics
were solitary adventurers, exploring the silence of
unknown worlds : they were the pioneers who opened
the path. " Their service is immeasurable," says
Dr Rufus Jones in his " Studies of Mystical
Religion," "for they patiently felt out, 'with toil
of knees and heart and hands,' the inward way to

156 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

God, and taught the finer souls of their age how
to dispense with the cumbersome machinery of the
mediaeval system. But the times were ripe for a
prophet statesman, who, with a great spiritual
vision, would throw himself into the task of break-
ing the yoke of bondage, and of guiding the people,
the nation, to freedom, peace and God. Wyclif
was the prophet statesman, and few men have ever
undertaken a harder task, or done it in a more
uncompromising and heroic spirit."

Not the great outer world, however, is our back-
ground in this study, but the solitary cell, where the
bliss of an unseen and all-enveloping love translates
itself into Fire, Sweetness and Song.

The Anchoress

In Chaucer's "Prologue to the Legend of Good
Women," the poet tells how, of all the flowers in the
mead he loves best the red and white flowers that
men call daisies in our town. So eagerly did he desire
to see the flowers, so young, so fresh of hue, that on
the first morning of May he rose before daybreak,

'-' With dredful herte and glad devocioun
For to ben at the resureccioun
Of this flour, when that it shuld unclose
Agayn the sonne, that roos as rede as rose ; .- .
And doun on knees anon-right I me sette,
And, as I coude, this fresshe flour I grette
Kneling alwey til hit unclosed was
Upon the smale softe swote gras
That was with floures swote enbrouded al.!J

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 157

It is to be questioned whether there is any passage
in literature that has a greater freshness than this.
Its freshness is more than the freshness of a new
dawn, the freshness of a new spring ; the soul has
become alive to a sudden wonder and miracle, it
thrills to the awe that rises out of perception of
some divine simplicity. The poet's gift in all ages
is to pierce through the white radiance into the
golden heart of things ; and Chaucer in this passage
sees with a swiftness, an immediacy, that would
seem to arise out of some unique vigour and gladness
of gaze.

To pass through the white radiance into the golden
heart of things is also the gift of the seer. There is
a little book, written by a contemporary of Chaucer's,
which possesses in like degree to this Prologue,
though in different kind, the qualities of vigour and
gladness, of sweetness and immediacy. It is not
the world of nature that entrances the writer of the
" Revelations of Divine Love," but the world within
nature, and beyond it ; and to the contemplation
of this interior world Dame Juliana of Norwich
brings the same simplicity, the same radiant sanity
of outlook that characterizes the attitude of Chaucer
to exterior things. Like his daisy, her book is
young and fresh of hue and has the dew upon it ;
its pages hold the stillness and the awe of dawn and
of spring. But its dew is the dew of the Spirit,
and its dawn was before the foundations of the world.

But little is known about the life of Dame Juliana,
Anchoress of Norwich. In the " History of Norfolk,"

158 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

by Blomc field (1768), we read in connexion with the
old church of St Julian in the parish of Conisford,
outlying Norwich : " In the east part of the church-
yard stood an anchorage in which an ankeress or
recluse dwelt till the Dissolution, when the house
was demolished, though the foundations may still
be seen (1768). In 1393 Lady Julian, the ankeress
here was a strict recluse, and had two servants to
attend her in her old age. This woman was in these
days esteemed one of the greatest holiness." This
church was founded before the Conquest, and service
is held there to this day. Its Norman tower of
flint rubble is still standing, and traces are still to be
found about the foundations of its south-eastern
wall of the anchorage occupied by Dame Juliana.
King Stephen gave this church to the Benedictine
nuns of Carrow, and it is possible that Juliana was
educated by these nuns, and joined their order. It
was, however, not necessary, though it was usual,
for an anchoress to belong to a religious order.
This is plainly stated in the Ancren Riwle, a rule
written, probably by Bishop Poor, for three sisters
who were anchoresses in the thirteenth century.
When asked to what order they belong, the Bishop
bids these ladies reply, to the Order of St James,
" because he says what religion is, and what right
order ' to keep himself pure and unstained from
the world ' . . . herein is religion, and not in the
wide hood, nor in the black, nor in the white, nor in
the gray cowl."

In the fourteenth century there were numerous

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 159

anchorages in England, some of them set in the
open country, many of them built against the walls
of a church, or actually within the church itself.
From the detailed directions given in the Ancren
Riwle it is not difficult to reconstruct the external
life of an anchoress about this time. The anchoress
is to take three vows only — the vows of obedience,
chastity, and constancy to her abode. She is to
live upon alms, as frugally as she can, and her two
meals a day are to be eaten in silence. She is not
to eat flesh or lard except in great sickness ; never-
theless, the writer of the Ancren Riwle is strongly
opposed to strict penances. " Nevertheless, dear
sisters," he writes, " your meat and your drink
have seemed to me less than I would have it. Fast
no day upon bread and water, except ye have leave."
The following passage is an interesting one, as
written by an ecclesiastic of moderate temper : —

" Wear no iron, nor haircloth, nor hedgehog-skin ;
and do not beat yourselves therewith, nor with a
scourge of leather thongs, nor leaded ; and do not
with holly nor with briars cause yourselves to bleed
without leave of your confessor ; and do not at one
time use too many flagellations."

He adds : " If ye would dispense with wimples,
have warm caps, and over them black veils."
Minute directions are given on such matters as hair-
cutting : "Ye shall have your hair cut four times
a year to disburden your head," and we see how

i6o WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

universal was the mediaeval practice of letting blood,
since in the same breath the anchoresses are told
to be let blood as oft (as four times a year) or oftener
if it is necessary. Also — and this is a permission
pleasing to modern ears — the anchoresses are
allowed to wash themselves as often as they please.

The anchoress may have two maidens to serve her,
one who stays always at home, and the other who
goes out to procure food. With regard to pets the
Bishop writes : "Ye shall not possess any beast,
my dear sisters, except only a cat." The room of an
anchoress is to have three windows, one opening to
the church, one to the room where the maidens are,
and one to the outer world : through this last window
the anchoress may give counsel to those who come
to her for it. " My dear sisters, love your windows
as little as possible," writes the Bishop ; and he
compares a " peering anchoress, who is always
thrusting her head outward," to " an untamed bird
in a cage." The windows are to be small, and they
are to be curtained with a curtain of double cloth,
black, having a white cross upon it.

Minute directions are given as to the devotions
of the recluses, and in addition to these they are
bidden to shape and sew and mend Church vestments,
and poor people's clothes, and help to clothe them-
selves and their domestics.

From these particulars we can form some idea
of the exterior life of an anchoress in the fourteenth
century. There are, however, but few documents
to indicate her interior life ; and of these " The

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 161

Revelations of Divine Love" is one of the most
searching.

The original manuscript, written in mixed East
Anglian and Northern dialects, is lost, but two
manuscript copies are in existence : one in Paris,
made in the sixteenth century, and one in the British
Museum, of seventeenth-century date. The earliest
printed copy was prepared by the Benedictine,
Serenus de Cressy, and appeared in 1670, and a
modern version has recently been made by Miss Grace
Warrack and published by Messrs Methuen.

The fourteenth century is of so motley a character,
and produced children of so divers a type, that it is
a little difficult to say what heredity Dame Juliana's
work can claim from her time. The " Revelations "
have the serene joy which at that epoch characterized
English mysticism, and in the case of Richard Rolle,
Hermit of Hampole, changed thought into song,
and the mind into full sweet sound ; and the zest
and the gladness with which Chaucer meets ordinary
everyday life are here turned with exquisite famil-
iarity to spiritual things : " For the most fulness
of joy that we shall have, as to my sight, is the
marvellous courtesy and homeliness of our Father,
that is our Maker, in our Lord Jesus Christ that is
our Brother and our Saviour."

But the fourteenth century was also a century of
plague and slaughter, of starvation and misery.
The Black Death swept over Europe ; famine and
fear stalked through village and town ; war, with
its hideous pack of mercenaries in full cry, rushed

162 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

over the face of the Continent, destroying the harvest
fields, and draining away the resources of existence.
Of these dark events of history, there is no shadow
in Dame Juliana's book. Still more striking, we
find no echo in her work of the bitter controversies
that were rending Holy Church at that time. The
corruption of the priesthood was widespread ; even
the genial Chaucer, despite his kindly outlook upon
men and things, has praise for but one church-
man in his gallery of ecclesiastical portraits, and
that is the parish Priest. His Monk is a self-
indulgent lover of pleasure — of the hunt and of the
table ; his Pardoner with pardons hot from Rome
is no better than a quack seller of valueless specifics ;
his Friar has no higher ambition than to rake in
money for his order ; the virtues of his Prioress
consist in dainty manners at table and an easy
sentimentality. The faults and failings which gave
Chaucer opportunity for his sly humour, worked
in a nature like William Langland's to gall, and in
a nature like John Wyclif's to fire. It was not for
the author of " Piers Plowman," stalking in his black
gown along the Strand, to gaze on the pomps and
evils that were sapping the Church with an easy
indifference ; he dwelt too close to misery, and
bitterness was in his heart, and sharp invective rose
to his lips. In Wyclif's ardent soul the sight of
wrongs and shames and injustices innumerable,
lighted the burning zeal of the reformer. There can
indeed have been few centuries that witnessed so
wide a severance between the ideals of the Church,

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 163

and the practice of its rulers. But there is no word
of criticism in Dame Juliana's book — no indication
even that she was aware of the depths of degradation
to which the clergy had fallen. The problems of
the world, whether political or ecclesiastical, remain
outside her cell. It is, however, more surprising
to find that she is in no greater degree perturbed
by the problems of the enclosed life. We have
in her book no discussions on asceticisms or dis-
ciplines ; no anguished backslidings ; no frantic
avoidance of the pitfalls of spiritual pride ; no
" hoarse, inarticulate cries " of the eagle baffled in
its attempt on the sun ; no terrible experiences of
outer darkness. The ways of torture that have to
be trodden by so many earnest seekers after God
are unknown to Dame Juliana's feet. The doctrines
of Grace and Election do not perplex her ; the fear of
eternal damnation does not disturb her. She writes :
"To me was shewed no harder hell than sin." There
is no wrath of God and no forgiveness of God in her
scheme of salvation : " For our soul is so fully oned
to God of His own goodness that between God and
our soul may be right naught."

" I saw soothfastly that our Lord was never wroth,
nor ever shall be. For He is God : Good, Life,
Truth, Love, Peace ; His Clarity and His Unity
suffer Him not to be wroth. For I saw truly that it
is against the property of His Might to be wroth,
and against the property of His Wisdom, and against
the property of His Goodness."

164 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

This is the keystone of Dame Juliana's faith :
Our soul is oned to Him, unchangeable Goodness,
and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor
forgiveness in His sight.

Out of this faith arises fulness of joy — gladness,
merriness, bliss — these words occur and recur in her
book, making spiritual sunshine. We are to be glad
and merry in love ; and when our courteous Lord
shows Himself to the soul, it is well merrily and with
glad cheer and with friendly welcoming : and they
are oned in bliss. Through this relationship, so
intimate and so tender, Dame Juliana has vision of
the love that was for us, even before we were made :

" And I saw full surely that ere God made us He
loved us ; which love was never slackened, nor ever
shall be. ... In our making we had beginning ;
but the love wherein He made us was in Him from
without beginning : in which love we have our
beginning."

And now to look more particularly at the definite
revelations on which Dame Juliana's faith and
teaching are based. These came to her, a simple
creature, unlettered (as she writes), the year of our
Lord 1373, on the thirteenth day of May, after seven
days of mortal sickness. She saw fifteen consecutive
visions or " shewings " between the hours of four and
nine in the morning, and one more " shewing " on
the evening of the next day. Here are her own
words :

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 165

" And when I was thirty years old and a half, God
sent me a bodily sickness, in which I lay three days
and three nights. ... I weened oftentimes to have
passed, and so weened they that were with me. ...
Thus I dured till day, and by then my body was dead
from the middle downwards, as to my feeling. Then
was I minded to be set upright, backward leaning,
with help — for to have more freedom of my heart
to be at God's will, and thinking on God while my
life would last.

"My curate was sent for me to be at my ending,
and by that time when he came I had set my eyes,
and might not speak. He set the cross before my
face and said : / have brought thee the Image of thy
Maker and Saviour : look thereupon and comfort thee
therewith. . . . After this the upper part of my body
began to die, so far forth that scarcely I had any
feeling ; with shortness of breath. And then I
weened in sooth to have passed.

"And in this moment suddenly all my pain was
taken from me and I was as whole (and specially
in the upper part of my body) as ever I was afore."

Then followed the vision : the crucifix was being
held before her eyes, and she " saw the red blood
trickle down from under the garland hot and freshly
and right plenteously, as it were in the time of His
Passion when the Garland of Thorns was pressed
on His Blessed Head, who was both God and man,
the same that suffered thus for me."

In studying the lives of Christian mystics we are

166 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

constantly driven to wonder how prolonged con-
templation of physical pain could have awakened
in many minds high spiritual insight and spiritual
intuition. It is easy to see how the infliction of pain
upon oneself may have cultivated qualities of will
and of endurance : it is more difficult to realize the
spiritual gain in the ceaseless fixing of the thought
upon physical suffering. It has to be remembered,
however, that the mediaeval attitude towards pain
differed radically from our modern attitude. Physi-
cal pain is to us an evil to be avoided ; to the mediaeval
mind it was a road that led in the Saviour's footsteps
— a glory to be coveted. To dwell upon details of
physical suffering is to us sign of a morbid craving
after sensationalism ; but to the mystic of the
Middle Ages, suffering was so fraught with sacred
association that it became spiritualized, deified,
symbol for supreme sacrifice and eternal love.

Although Dame Juliana does not possess that
amazing range of self-analysis that enabled St
Teresa to describe her soul experiences with almost
scientific precision, yet the anchoress of Norwich is
able to distinguish with great clearness the different
channels through which she receives communication.
The revelation was derived, she writes, by three ways :
" That is to say, by bodily sight, and by word formed
in mine understanding, and by spiritual sight."
By bodily sight she had vision of Christ's Passion ;
by spiritual sight she had vision of its meaning, and
of the deeper mysteries of the faith. And on the sole
occasion when she doubts the reality of the vision

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 167

seen by bodily sight, it is confirmed by spiritual sight.
This happened after the first fifteen " shewings,"
when sickness was upon her again :

' Then came a religious person to me and asked me
how I fared. I said I had raved to-day. The Cross
that stood afore my face methought it bled fast. And
with this the person that I had spoke to waxed all
sober and marvelled. . . . And when I saw that he
took it earnestly and with so great reverence, I wept,
full greatly ashamed, and would have been shriven ;
but at that time I could tell it no priest for I thought :
How should a priest believe me? I believe not our
Lord God.

" Then the Lord Jesus of His mercy . . . shewed it
(the Revelation) all again within in my soul with more
fulness, with the blessed light of His precious love :
saying these words full mightily and full meekly :
Wit it now well : it was no raving that thou sawest
this day."

Her vision of Christ's passion that she saw with
her bodily sight is marked by an extraordinary
vividness of colour and detail.

" The great drops of blood fell down from under the
garland like pellets, seeming as if it had come out of
the veins ; and in coming out they were brown-red,
for the blood was full thick ; and in the spreading
abroad they were bright-red ; and when they came
to the brows they vanished . . . the plenteousness

168 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

is like the drops of water that fall off the eaves after
a great shower of rain, that fall so thick that no man
may number them with bodily wit ; and for the
roundness, they were like the scale of herring, in
spreading on the forehead. ..."

Near the time of Christ's dying she writes : "I
saw His face as it were dry and bloodless with pale
dying. And later, more pale, dead, languoring ; and
then turned more dead unto blue ; and then more
brown-blue."

These successive features of a wholly physical
anguish are so irradiated by the spirit in which they
are seen that they become to the seer a sight " full
sweet and marvellous to behold, peaceful, restful,
sure and delectable." Juliana's bodily eyes witness
Christ's agony — to her spiritual understanding is
revealed at the same time His homely loving :

" I saw that He is to us everything that is good and
comfortable for us : He is our clothing that for love
wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for
tender love, that He may never leave us. ... Then
said our good Lord Jesus Christ : Art thou well pleased
that I suffered for thee ? I said : Yea, good Lord,
I thank Thee ; yea, good Lord, blessed mayst Thou be."

As we read of these visions of Christ's passion
we are borne in imagination into the cell of the
anchoress ; we see the light shining through the white
cross of the curtain, and hear the chanting coming

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 169

through the window opening into the church. We
are back in mediaeval times, when the intense and
prolonged contemplation of Christ's wounds produced
the physical stigmata on the bodies of his adorers.
We have passed into a world of gladness and simpli-
city, where all the relationships between the soul
and God are marked by homeliness and courtesy and
tender love.

But Juliana's revelations have aspects that do not
belong to any time or nation. There are visions
among the sixteen " she wings " — visions opened to
spiritual sight — that may give her rank among the
great seers of divine things. She has climbed the
heights of mystical thought, she has looked out to
far spiritual horizons. With swift directness, in all
simplicity, she tells of the great mysteries :

" And after this I saw God in a Point — that is to
say, in mine understanding — by which sight I saw
that He is in all things. ... He is the Mid-point of
all thing. . . . And all this shewed He full blissfully,
signifying thus : See ! I am God : see ! I am in all
thing : see ! I do all thing : see ! I lift never Mine
hands off My works, nor never shall, without end :
see ! I lead all thing to the end I ordained it to from
without beginning, by the same Might, Wisdom and Love
whereby I made it. How should anything be amiss ? "

It was not only through direct revelation, either
bodily or spiritual, as she tells us, that Dame
Juliana gained insight into spiritual truth. For years

170 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

after the sixteen visions had been vouchsafed her
she brooded over their ultimate meaning, with the
result that she takes a clear stand on many of the
most vexed questions of philosophy and metaphysics.
Thus she holds the Neo-Platonic view that in every
soul that shall be saved is a godly will that never
assented to sin, nor ever shall ; because every soul
has absolute unity of substance with God — is, in
fact, to quote the phraseology of a certain school
of mystics, a spark from the divine fire. Eckhart
summarized this doctrine when he said that the
eye with which he saw God, was the same as
the eye with which God saw him ; but it is to be
doubted whether any exponent has set forth this
view with greater clearness than Dame Juliana of
Norwich :

" When God should make man's body He took the
clay of earth, which is matter mingled and gathered
of all bodily things ; and thereof He made man's
body. But to the making of man's soul He took right
nought, but made it. And thus is the Nature-made
rightfully oned to the Maker, which is substantial
Maker not made — that is, God. . . . Our soul is made
to be God's dwelling-place ; and the dwelling-place
of the soul is God, Which is unmade. And high under-
standing it is, inwardly to see and know that God,
which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul ; and an
higher understanding it is to see and know that our
soul, that is made, dwelleth in God's Substance ; of
which Substance, God, we are that we are."

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 171

Certain schools of theologians have vigorously
combated the doctrine of Unity of Substance, in fear
lest the creature should become intoxicated with
spiritual pride, and blasphemously claim equality
with the Godhead. But presumption was ever far
from Juliana's thought. She who wrote that God is
nearer to us than our own soul (" for our soul is so
deep grounded in God and so endlessly treasured,
that we may not come to the knowing thereof till
we have first knowing of God " ), has yet given us a
picture of the majesty of the Creator and the
dependence of the creature almost unequalled in
imaginative insight and beauty :

" Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the
quantity of an hazel nut, in the palm of my hand ;
and it was round as a ball. I looked thereupon
with eye of my understanding, and thought :
What may this be ? And it was answered generally
thus : It is all that is made. I marvelled how it
might last, for methought it might suddenly have
fallen to naught for little [ness]. And I was answered
in my understanding : It lasteth, and ever shall last,
for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the being
by the love of God.

" In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The
first is that God made it, the second is that God
loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it."

Not only imaginative insight and beauty and
tenderness mark this description, but in her vision of
All-thing as a ball, Juliana seems to have had fore-

172 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

sight of scientific truth ; just as in her vision of God
as a Point she has touched the height of spiritual
mathematics.

It will be asked what attitude Juliana took to the
problem that has baffled the thinkers of all time — the
problem of evil, the problem of sin. To the religious
mind there are four principal ways of meeting this
problem. The first way is the assumption of a Dark
Angel, or Principle of Evil, warring ever with God
or Good. The second way is the denial of the exis-
tence of evil and sin as realities in themselves. The
third way is the regarding of evil and sin as the neces-
sary outcome of wrongs committed in past lives —
the inevitable effects of past causes. This involves
a belief in reincarnation. The fourth way is the
admission that this problem is too hard for us to meet
unaided — that it is beyond our human comprehen-
sion. This is the way taken by Juliana. It has been
revealed to her that all shall be well and all shall be
well, and all manner of thing shall be well ; but brood-
ing over this, she remembers that it is a point of faith
that many shall be condemned, as angels that fell
out of heaven for pride, and heathen men, and men
that have received Christendom, and liveth un-
Christian life —

" All these shall be condemned to hell without
end as Holy Church teacheth me to believe. And
all this [so] standing, methought it was impossible
that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord
shewed at the same time.

DAME JULIANA OF NORWICH 173

" And as to this I had no other answer in shewing
of our Lord God but this : That which is impossible
to thee is not impossible to Me : I shall save my word
in all things and shall make all things well."

She makes allusion again to a " part of truth "
that " is hid and shut up from us." " One part of
truth is our Saviour and our salvation. This blessed
part is open and clear and fair and light and plenteous
— for all mankind that is of good will, and shall be,
is comprehended in this part." But the second —
" all that part beside our salvation " — is our Lord's
privy counsel, and it belongeth to His servant, for
obedience and reverence, not to learn wholly His
meaning. This recalls the " Silence of Buddha " —
his refusal to give his disciples any teaching except
that directly necessary for the following of the Path.
When questioned on ultimates he remained silent.
But though Dame Juliana admits divine secrecies
beyond the comprehension of man, her book, as we
have seen, does not fear to deal with high mysteries.
And in no unfaltering words does she give us the final
meaning of all :

" And from that time it was shewed I desired
oftentimes to learn what was our Lord's meaning.
And fifteen years after, and more, I was answered
in ghostly understanding, saying thus : Wouldst
thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing ? Learn
it well : Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee ?
Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore

174 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

shewed it He ? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou
shall learn and know more in the same. But thou shall
never know nor learn therein other thing without end."

There is a story told in the Shin Shu books how
the Japanese monk Shinran (born 1173) was met by
a young girl, who gave to him a crystal burning-glass,
saying : " Take this and keep it. It has the power
to collect the sun's rays and focus them upon one
point, on which it shines with burning heat. Do the
same for religion. Collect and focus into one point
the whole system of the faith, and let that one point
be made burning and bright, so that it may kindle
into flames even the simplest and most ignorant
soul." 1

The " Revelations of Divine Love " may be
accounted such a burning-crystal. The book focuses
the faith into one point — the oneing of the soul to
God — and makes that one point burning with love
and bright with joy. All differences are merged
into one ultimate unity ; all colours are blent again
into their anterior whiteness. And so is the soul
kindled into flame.

1 Lloyd : " Shinran and his Work.-1'-

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA

In the Cell of Self-Knowledge

TO write of Catherine of Siena one should write
in Blood and Fire. No symbol less ardent than
Fire can portray her burning spirit of devotion ever
flaming upward yet warming and lighting friends
and neighbours in its glow ; no symbol less vital
than Blood can suggest that unquenchable strength
of will and character which moulded kings and popes
and changed the very course of history.

As Blood and as Fire, the great realities shaped
themselves before her soul — Fire as truth, and Blood
as love. " O abyss, O eternal Godhead, O deep sea,"
she writes, " thou art fire that ever burnest and art
not consumed ; thou art fire that consumest all self-
love in the soul by thy heat ; thou art fire that de-
stroyest all coldness ; thou dost illumine, and by thy
light thou hast made us know thy truth." As Fire
stands a symbol for the eternal Godhead, so Blood
stands symbol for the supreme love of God-and-Man
nailed on the cross. All the passion and tenderness
of sacrifice, all the selflessness of devotion, Catherine
puts into the symbol of Blood, and the image, filled
with intensity of meaning, is found abundantly in
her life and letters.

Intensity is the keynote of her nature. As a
175

176 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

mystic, intensity of desire enabled her to scale
unknown heights of spiritual experience ; as a woman,
intensity of love stimulated her untiring charity ;
as a politician, intensity of purpose overcame the
most stubborn obstacles. It is only diffidently,
haltingly, reverently that we venture to analyse a
character so great in its manysidedness. In all her
bewildering spiritual experience, amid the complex
intricacies of politics, her mind always retained perfect
equilibrium ; piercing insight was united with sound
common-sense, devotion to God with the largest
human tenderness. In every circumstance of daily
life she showed herself heroic. The courage with
which she faced principalities and powers, and
braved a murderous rabble bent on her death, was
less than the courage with which she bore a life of
excruciating physical torment, and disappointments
more bitter in the frustration of her dearest hopes.
Her countenance, we read, was always calm and gay,
and she brought her message with so winning a
sweetness of personality that none who heard her
could resist. " At her voice, nay, only looking upon
her, hearts were changed."

From start to finish her life is full of wonder and
beauty. To us of this age, its most striking, its most
puzzling feature lies in the fact that the manifold
activities of mind, of body and of soul had for pre-
paration years of withdrawal and asceticism. The
robust girl who, as her mother tells us, was able to
carry a horseload up two flights of stairs to the attic
and not feel the weight, emerged at the age of seven-

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 177

teen from the cell in which she had enclosed herself,
a frail, emaciated woman who lived on a few crumbs
and herbs ; who did practically without sleep, arid
who was nevertheless capable of continuous and
arduous exertion of body ; who was possessed of a
mind vigorous and penetrating, of unflinching moral
courage and the sanest wisdom.

For Catherine's life and experiences, contemporary
material is abundant. Her confessor, Brother
Raymund of Capua, Master-General of the Domini-
cans, to whom she was deeply attached, has left a
full biography, the " Vita " or " Legenda." This was
finished in 1395, fifteen years after the saint's death.
We have also vivid descriptions set down by her
secretaries and disciples. We have the evidence
collected between 1411 and 1413 from her surviving
followers when they were accused of celebrating her
Feast before she had been canonized by the Church.
Above all, three hundred and seventy-three of her
own letters have come down to us, together with
her mystical treatise, the " Dialogue," dictated while
she was in a state of trance. Mr Edmund Gardner's
modern Life of the saint is a deeply interesting and
sympathetic study.

Catherine was born on 25th March 1347 into a
world of unrest and trouble. Not only were nations
at war against nations, and cities against cities,
but the very cities themselves were a prey to con-
tending factions. This was especially evident in
the Italian republics. Dante, writing some decades
before the birth of Catherine, compares Florence to
M

178 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

a sick man tossing on his couch, and vainly seeking
ease in a change of position. In Siena, Catherine's
birthplace, there had been a hundred years' strife
between the nobles and the people, between the
lesser crafts and the greater crafts, the fat and
the lean, popolo grasso and popolo magro. Since
1305 the popes had been at Avignon. They ruled
their vast possessions in Italy by means of rapacious
papal legates, whose cruelties and extortions drove
the people to rebellion. Mercenaries roamed the un-
happy country, fighting now for pope, now for king,
now for people, extorting what spoil they pleased.
This condition of things gave rise to problems of
extreme difficulty with which Catherine was called
upon to deal in her active exterior life — uprisings
and schisms which caused her anguish almost past
our comprehension. But before touching on these,
let us tell what we may of Catherine's early life.

Siena stands to-day on its three hills, little changed
from mediaeval times. Against the radiant Italian
sky, turret of red brick and campanile of silver stone
rise into the clear air. Siena is still girded with walls
and bastions, and her gates still retain their ancient
names. One hill is crowned by the great unfinished
Gothic cathedral ; and one by the austere red-brick
church of St Dominic. From a distance this church
draws the eyes of all lovers of Catherine. Above its
roof she saw as a child the vision that shaped her
destiny ; for twenty years its floors were trodden
by her almost daily ; within its walls she had ecstasies
and visions. Below St Dominic stretched the quarters

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 179

of the smaller tradesmen, and half-way up a steep
street, inhabited of old by dyers and tanners, stands
to this day, transfigured but not materially altered,
the house in which Catherine was born and in which
her life was passed. So Swinburne writes :

" And the house midway hanging see
That saw Saint Catherine bodily,
Felt on its floors her sweet feet move
And the live light of fiery love
Burn from her beautiful, strange face."

Her father, Jacomo di Benincasa, was a dyer by
trade ; a man of gentle manners, pious and loving.
During the time when the lesser crafts had gained
political ascendancy in the little republic, he had
acted as chief magistrate, but the balance of power
was continually shifting, and at a later date
Catherine's brothers were in danger of their lives
from an opposite faction. Catherine was the twenty-
fourth child of her mother Lapa, and from her baby
years was the delight of the whole neighbourhood.
They gave her the name of Euphrasy ne, Joy, and
she, who loved children so tenderly, was as a child
most tenderly loved. But, we read, she was serious
even in her play. We see the tiny golden-haired
baby going on her knees up the stairs of the house,
saying, " Hail, Mary ! " at every step, as she had
watched the pious pilgrims doing. We imagine
her listening with grave eyes to the stories told by
the friars and priests who frequented the house. It
is a little difficult for us to realize the overwhelming

i8o WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

part played by the Church in mediaeval life. The
streets were thronged with men and women clad
in her livery who had taken her vows ; the vast
churches, so frequented, so familiar, were the thres-
hold to great mysteries. The high crucifix, the
image of the Virgin, the pictured saints, filled the
imagination with concrete details. It is at once
evident that transcendental experiences, if they
are to reach normal consciousness, must make use
of whatever material the brain supplies. So in the
raiment of the Church, the visions of Catherine
clothed themselves. When only six years old,
returning from a visit to her married sister, the child
Catherine saw in the sunset sky above St Dominic,
Jesus enthroned, clad in pontifical robes and wear-
ing the tiara, attended by Peter, Paul and John.
Jesus smiled and raised two fingers to bless the little
child, and she stood absorbed in the glory until her
brother touched her arm and called her back to
the things of this world. Having reached home,
we read in the " Miracoli," a collection of legends by
an unknown author, she said nothing to father or
mother of what she had seen ; but from that day
there grew up in her a certain carefulness of soul,
a remorse of conscience, and fear of committing sin,
as far as was possible to one of her age.

The imagination of the child had been captured
by the stories of those desert saints who dwelt
in the wilderness alone with God. Indeed, there
was a settlement of hermits in the large oak forest
of Lecceto, only three miles from Siena. One day,

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 181

when Catherine was no more than seven, she set
out to seek a place where she might lead the solitary
life. She took with her a loaf of bread and passed
through the city gates into a land where she had
never been before. Soon, to her great joy, she
found a little cave, and feeling that God had guided
her feet she went in and knelt down and prayed.
But the hours went by, and perhaps her heart
failed her a little, and she thought that her parents
might miss her and sorrow for her, and then the
legend tells that God sent a little cloud on which
she was wafted safely home.

When Catherine was twelve years old, her parents
felt that the time had arrived for them to consider
her marriage. In vain, however, her mother im-
plored her to wear prettier clothes, and to dye and
dress her hair as the fashion ordained. For love
of her married sister, Bonaventura, Catherine
modified slightly the soberness of her dress — a
compliance which all her life she repented. A few
years later her sister died. Catherine remained
firm in her purpose to take no husband, and the
prayers of her parents had no power to move her.
At last they called to their aid a friar preacher,
Brother Thomas, a relative of the family and her
first confessor. " If your purpose is serious, my
daughter," he said to her, " prove it by cutting off
your hair." Catherine's hair was her greatest
beauty, abundant and golden-brown in colour.
Without a moment's hesitation she seized a pair
of scissors, and the locks fell to the ground. But

182 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

though the friar took this as a sign that she had
indeed chosen the higher life, her parents regarded
it as an act of rebellion against themselves. They
were determined that she should be brought to
obedience, and that her spirit of defiance should be
broken. They took from her her own little room,
and made her share one with her brother. They dis-
missed the kitchen-maid, so that Catherine should
have all the heavy work of the house to do. She
bore all this with a ready sweetness, with a gaiety
and a cheerfulness that must in the end have broken
down the most stubborn opposition. One day
Jacomo, happening to enter the bedroom which
Catherine shared with her brother, saw the girl
on her knees, praying, and hovering over her head
a white dove. Convinced by this sign, he offered
no further barrier to his daughter's will. At four-
teen she was given leave to dispose her life as she
wished.

She had taken no vows ; she was under no rule or
direction. What she did was accomplished by her
sole will. She begged for some little place which she
might have to herself, and her father gave her a
room under the house. The cell is still to be seen,
and the remains of the brick steps that led to the
one small window. The lower step was often her
only pillow. " Here no tongue could narrate," writes
Raymund in the " Legenda," " with what rigour
of penitence she afflicted her body, with what
eagerness of love she sought the countenance of her
Spouse. In this little chamber were renewed the

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 183

olden-time works of the holy fathers of Egypt,
and all the more wondrously, inasmuch as they were
done in her father's house, without any human
teaching, example or guidance."

During this time — the exact date is uncertain —
Catherine was allowed to join the Third Order of St
Dominic, the Sisters of Penance, known familiarly
in Siena as the Mantellate, by reason of the black
mantle (of humanity) they wore over the white habit
(of innocence). The Mantellate were women of
mature age, most of them widows, banded together
for good works. They lived at home, and went
about freely ; they took no vows whatsoever, either
of chastity, poverty or obedience. At first Lapa
opposed her daughter's desire, but at last, induced
by Catherine's serious illness, she approached the
sisters. They hesitated to admit one so young into
their order, lest her youth and charm should work
scandal ; but she was at this time so disfigured
by illness that the sisters who visited her were
reassured on this point. They were so touched and
edified by her conversation that they recommended
her admission into the order. With deep rejoicing
she received the mantle, which was always precious
to her. She mended and patched it with her own
hands, and parted with it only once, to give it to
a beggar. It was, however, afterwards restored to
her.

For three years — from the age of fourteen to the
age of seventeen — Catherine dwelt in her cell in
practical isolation. She left it only to go to church ;

184 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

she spoke with no man except her confessor. Bare
boards served as her bed by night and her bench
by day. The window and door of her cell were
kept closed, and candles burned before the image
of the Virgin and the crucifix. She practised a life
of extreme austerity. She accustomed herself to
live on a little bread and a few raw herbs, and in
after life the taking of any food at all became a
severe torture ; for long weeks together she is
known to have subsisted only on the Sacrament,
administered daily. The austerity that cost her
most was the overcoming of the desire for sleep.
She trained herself to do with only two hours' sleep,
and that every two nights. She watched and prayed
while the friars of St Dominic slept, so that prayer
might arise continuously before God's throne.
Sorely Lapa grieved over the harsh usage her beloved
daughter inflicted upon herself ; and very gently
Catherine turned the mother's tender devices into
occasions for even more vigorous penance.

Such a way of life is so alien to modern practice
and ideal that the world to-day is very far from
accepting it with the simple and heartwhole admira-
tion accorded by Catherine's biographer, Brother
Raymund. And yet, though we may take exception
to the method, there are few of us who will dispute
Catherine's aim, which, in a word, was the purifica-
tion of body, mind and soul. Impurities of desire,
impurities of thought, clog the channel between us
and the divine, and self-knowledge, as she under-
stood it, is the first stage in the journey to God.

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 185

So Catherine writes in her "Dialogue" — it is the
Eternal Father who is speaking :

" Wherefore I reply that this is the way, if thou
wilt arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment
of Me, the Eternal Father, that thou wilt never go
outside the knowledge of thyself. ... In self-
knowledge, then, thou wilt humble thyself, seeing
that in thyself thou dost not even exist ; for thy
very being, as thou wilt learn, is derived from Me,
since I have loved both thee and others before you
were in existence."

Self-knowledge, the knowledge of the true self, is
thus the knowledge of a new self, the spiritual self.
The finding of this self is imaged by many under
the symbol of New Birth, and Catherine compares
the birth of the spiritual self within each of us to the
birth of Jesus in the stable. She is here following
the method of St Paul, who gives to the whole
life of Jesus a cosmic interpretation — His birth,
baptism, crucifixion and resurrection being the figure
of the destiny of every soul. We quote from the
" Dialogue " :

" Thou dost see " — again the Eternal Father is
speaking — " this sweet and loving Word born in a
stable, while Mary was journeying ; to show to you,
who are travellers, that you must ever be born
again in the stable of knowledge of yourselves,
where you will find Him born by grace within
your souls."

i86 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

The Old Masters seem to have been familiar with
the symbolism which identifies the earthly nature
with a cell or cave, wherein the spirit is born. Very
constantly they represent the Nativity in rocky
hollows, or at least introduce some cave-like features
into the stable. It is not merely a historical scene
they are painting, nor one great spiritual moment
in the world's story, but the symbol of a universal
truth of daily occurrence.

Self-knowledge, the spiritual self, is reached by a
process of purgation. But in all her writings and
teachings Catherine is most careful to inculcate
moderation and discretion in the use of penance.
She is continually writing to her friends begging
and commanding them not to fast, even on the days
ordained by Holy Church, if they do not feel strong
enough. " If the body is weak," she writes to
Sister Daniella of Orvieto, " flesh must be eaten ;
if once a day is not enough, then four times. This
discretion demands. Therefore it insists that pen-
ance be treated as a means and not as a chief desire.
Dost thou know why it must not be chief ? That
the soul may not serve God with a thing that is
finite, and that may be taken trom it ; but with
holy desire, which is infinite, through its union with
the infinite desire of God ; and with the virtues
which neither devil nor fellow-creature nor weakness
can take from us, unless we choose."

The teaching of the " Dialogue " is even more
emphatic. " Often, indeed, if the soul performs
not her penance with discretion — that is to say, if

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 187

her affection be placed principally in the penance she
has undertaken — her perfection will be impeded. . . .
She should place her principal affection in virtue
rather than in penance. . . . When thou wert
desirous of doing great penance for My sake, asking,
' What can I do to endure suffering for Thee, O
Lord ? ' I replied to thee, speaking in thy mind :
' I take delight in few words and many works.' '

If in Catherine's own case, when she was little
more than a child, her burning love for God outran
all reason, we do not feel ourselves in any position
to criticize. Even on the human side we have to
admit that she succeeded in bringing the body into
absolute subjection to the will, that she was able to
overcome all physical repugnances, so that loving
service to loathsome disease was joyfully given,
and that her own supreme self-conquest endued her
with unlimited power to guide and control others.

Her physical health suffered ; her activities were
not impaired, but she endured agonies of pain and
died early. Extremes of asceticism no doubt
contributed to this result, but we must also take
into account the conflicts and ecstasies too shattering
for flesh to bear. It has, however, been well pointed
out that the mystical life is not the only life that
involves possible danger to health and well-being.
The soldier, the hospital nurse, the explorer, the
aviator — all these gladly face the risks of their
calling. " The fact of ill-health," says Baron von
HUgel, " simply raises the question of the serious
value of the mystical life." If it has serious value,

188 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

he concludes, then we must accept any penalties it
entails. And it must be remembered that in many
cases the sense of the inflowing of the divine life
has co-ordinated the whole being, has brought
harmony and peace and health. But Catherine
of Siena was afire with divine love, and in it her
frail body was consumed.

Before, however, Catherine reached the consum-
mation, she had one more terrible fight to wage
against the flesh.

In the histories that have come down to us of
mystical purification, there is a moment when desire
summons all its scattered forces for one last assault.
The kingdoms of the world, with which the devil
tempted Jesus, the glories and beauties of material
life, every delicate bait to lure the starved senses —
all these assemble to bar the struggling soul at this
stage of its progress. They are symbolized in
various legends under various shapes ; visioned as
demons wooing with exquisite softness of physical
form and beauty, with gleaming raiments, with rich
and steaming meats ; or as fiends, obscene and
impure, assailing with continual torment. From
such terrible visions Catherine at one period could
find no rest. In vain she battled against the horror,
in vain she dragged herself from the cell to the
church, and lay prostrate on the stones. Only by
a joyous acceptance of suffering did she at length
win to peace. ' I have chosen suffering for my
consolation and will gladly bear these and all other
torments in the name of the Saviour, for as

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 189

long as shall please His Majesty.' Then all that
assemblage of demons departed in confusion, and a
great light appeared that illumined all the room,
and in the light the Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
nailed to the cross and stained with blood, and from
the cross he called the holy virgin, saying : ' My
daughter Catherine, seest thou how much I have
suffered for thee ? Let it not then be hard to
thee to endure for Me. . . .' But she, imitating
Antony, said : ' And where wast Thou, my Lord,
whilst my heart was tormented with so much
foulness ? ' To which the Lord answered : ' I
was in thy heart ! '

It is very difficult for us to realize, to understand,
to interpret Catherine's mystical experiences, for
even to those of her own time, to those most dear
to her, she was unable to tell them with a tongue of
flesh. " Were I to try and express to you what I
saw," she says to Raymund, " I should reproach
myself as guilty of vain words : it seems to me that
I should blaspheme God and dishonour Him by my
language. The distance is so vast between what
my spirit contemplated, when ravished in God, and
everything I could describe to you, that I feel I
should be deceiving you in speaking of these things."
The accounts we have are thus only " pearls dipped
in mud," to USL another of Catherine's phrases —
a light hidden with material covering, clothed in the
temporary substance of the brain. Catherine, we
read, smelt the fragrance of the flowers of Paradise,
and was visited by heavenly presences. Christ

igo WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Himself came to her and the words he spoke were
the foundation stone of all her life. " Knowest
thou, O daughter, who thou art, and who I am ?
Thou art she who art naught, and I am He who am.
If thou hast this knowledge in thy soul, the enemy
will never be able to deceive thee, and thou wilt
escape from all his snares."

As we plunge deeper and deeper into mystical
experience, language evolved for utilitarian purposes
becomes more and more inadequate. Images drawn
from the spheres of material life are the only ones
available ; they are of necessity but coarse devices
to indicate clumsily that which is beyond expression.
The mystic life has its supreme consummation in
the union of the soul with God. After the stage of
Purgation is passed, after the stage of Illumination,
the soul reaches an attainment beyond all thought,
and knows with a certitude that has no words that
it has become one with the divine. How is this
to be said ? In earthly life there is no union so close
and so tender as the marriage of lover and beloved.
We are driven, therefore, to make use of this symbol,
and to enlarge it, transfigure it, glorify it, until it
becomes the Spiritual Marriage, the Mystic Espousal
wherein creature and Creator are made one.

The central innermost experience symbolized by
the Spiritual Marriage remains the same throughout
the ages ; only the raiment of mind-stuff that clothes
it varies with different periods. The Spiritual
Marriage of Catherine has taken upon itself much
of the concrete detail of her time, while the Spiritual

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 191

Marriage of Teresa is almost without externalities.
We tell the story as it is told in the " Legenda."

" As Lent drew near, on the last day of Carnival,
Catherine shut herself up in her cell, and sought by
prayer and fasting to make reparation for the
offences committed by the thoughtless crowds who
passed her door. Her Lord appeared to her, and
said : ' Because thou hast forsaken all the vanities
of the world, and set thy love upon Me, and because,
for My sake thou hast chosen rather to afflict thy
body with fasting than to eat flesh with others . . .
therefore I am determined this day to keep a solemn
feast with thee, and with great joy and pomp to
espouse thy soul to Me in faith.' As He was yet
speaking there appeared in the same place the most
glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the beloved
disciple St John the Evangelist, St Paul the Apostle
and the great Patriarch and Founder of her order,
St Dominic ; and after these came the kingly Poet
and Prophet with a musical psalter in his hand.
Then our Blessed Lady came to her and took her
by the hand, which she held towards her Divine Son,
and besought Him that he would vouchsafe to
espouse her to Him in good faith. To which he
consented with a very sweet and lovely countenance,
and taking out a ring that was set about with four
precious pearls, and had in the other part a marvel-
lous rich diamond, he put the same on the finger
of her right hand, saying thus : ' Behold, I here
espouse thee to Me, thy Maker and Saviour, in faith
which shall continue in thee from this time forward

192 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

evermore unchanged, until the time shall come of a
blissful consummation in the joys of heaven. Now
then, act courageously ; thou art armed with faith,
and shalt triumph over all thine enemies.' ' Then
the vision disappeared.

It is well to keep in mind the central fact of Union,
since this links Catherine's Spiritual Marriage with
universal mystical experience. All experience has,
however, to express itself through the medium of
its time.

The symbol of the Spiritual Marriage is one capable
of dangerous use ; over-sensuous imagery has too
often contaminated its purity, and a strain of
earthly passion has mingled with the divine. But
in Catherine's vision, the Bridegroom brings His
bride no languorous ecstasy ; His words are a
trumpet-call to the soul. " Now then, act courage-
ously ! " he says. And with unfaltering resolution
Catherine obeyed the call.

The Voice speaking in her soul, the Voice of the
Bridegroom, urged her to resume once more the life
of every day in all its small details and trivialities.
" Behold, the hour of dinner is at hand ; go up
therefore and take thy place at dinner with thy family,
and then return to Me." In obedience to the
Voice, she began once again to perform the menial
duties of the house — sweeping the floors, cleaning
the dishes, serving in the kitchen, and often, when
the household slept, washing the dirty linen. But
not only did she deem herself bidden to take her
place again in domestic life. Brother Raymund

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 193

interprets the words sounding in her ears : " Open
to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove," as mean-
ing : Open for Me the gates of souls that I may
enter them. Open the path by which My sheep
may pass in and out, and find pasture. Open for
My honour thy treasury of divine grace and know-
ledge, and pour it forth upon the faithful."

But before we come to Catherine's work in the
outer world let us touch for a moment on the little
group that she gathered about her in her cell. No
relationship has ever been more beautiful than
Catherine's to her spiritual family ; no mother
could have yearned with more devoted love over
her earthly children than Catherine over her " sons
and daughters." " My son," she said to one of her
disciples, " know that my Divine Saviour, having
given me a spiritual family, leaves me in ignorance
of nothing that concerns them." It is difficult to
remember that it is a girl, or at least a young woman,
who speaks — Catherine died at the age of thirty-
three. A small group among the sisters of her
order were with her always, and for these she had
the most tender affection. She was united to her
confessor and biographer, Brother Raymund, by a
strong attachment. The little dark underground
cell, with its candles ever burning, became a sacred
place to the men and women who crowded it, to
listen to Catherine's words, to write her letters —
those letters, which, more than any other record,
give us a living picture of her character. She only
learned to write three years before her death, but

194 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

she continued to the end dictating her letters, some-
times two or three at a time. Three youths of noble
birth constituted themselves her secretaries, " bind-
ing themselves to her in worship and love and friend-
ship " : a spiritual tie of whole-hearted devotion,
which she describes in the " Dialogue " as the means
chosen by God to raise a soul as yet imperfect in
love to the perfection of love. " By thus conceiving
a spiritual and absorbing love for some one creature,
such a soul frees herself from all unworldly passions,
and advances in virtue, by this ordered love casting
out all disordered affections. By the unselfishness
and perfection of her love for such a friend, the soul
can test the perfection or imperfection of her love
for God."

Two of her secretaries, Neri di Landoccio Pag-
liaresi and Stephen Maconi, were close friends.
Both men belonged to noble families of Siena, and
their liking for each other was no doubt stimulated
by extreme diversity of character. Neri was a
scholar and a poet of some reputation, delicate and
sensitive in temperament to a fault, brooding, self-
tormenting, trembling always on the verge of morbid
fears. It needed all Catherine's sympathetic insight
and firm encouragement to keep the balance of this
too lightly poised nature from dipping to despon-
dency. " You asked me to receive you as a son,"
she writes to Neri in the first of her letters to him,
" and therefore I, unworthy, miserable and wretched
as I am, have already received you and receive
you with affectionate love ; and I pledge, and will

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 195

pledge myself, for ever in the sight of God, to bear
the weight for you of all the sins you have committed
or may commit." Stephen Maconi, bred to the
profession of arms, gay, lively, full of high spirits
and drollery, was the disciple whom Catherine loved
best. Could anything be more tender than this
from a letter that Catherine wrote at Genoa to
Stephen's mother : " Take comfort sweetly and be
patient and do not be troubled because I have kept
Stephen too long ; for I have taken good care of
him. Through love and affection I have become one
thing with him, and therefore I have taken what is
yours as though it were mine own. I am sure that
you are not really displeased. For you and for
him together, I would fain do my very utmost, even
unto death. You, mother, have given birth to him
once ; and I wish to give birth to him and you and
all your family, in tears and in labour, through
continual prayer and desire for your salvation."

We might multiply quotations endlessly to
illustrate the deep yearning love that Catherine
had for every soul. She ends one of her letters to a
brother who had left his order : " If I were near
at hand, I would know what demon had stolen
away my little sheep, and what is the bond that
keeps him bound, so that he does not return to the
flock with the others. But I will strive to see it by
means of continual prayer, and with this knife to
cut the bond that holds him ; and then my soul
will be happy."

Love was indeed the central fact of Catherine's

196 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

universe. Her faith is concentrated in one sublime
phrase : " For nails would not have held God-and-
Man fast to the cross, had love not held Him there."
" Think," she writes, " that the first raiment that
we had is love ; for we are created to the image and
likeness of God only by love, and therefore man
cannot be without love, for he is made of naught else
than very love ; for all he has, according to the
soul, and according to the body, he has of love." In
the "Dialogue" the voice of the Eternal speaks to
her thus :

" All love that you bear Me you owe Me as a debt,
and not as a free gift, because you are bound to give
it Me ; and I love you freely, not in duty bound.
You cannot, then, render to Me the love that I
require of you ; and therefore have I set you in the
midst of others, in order that you may do to them
what you cannot do to Me — that is, love them freely
and without reserve, and without expecting any
return from it. ... So this love must be flawless,
and you must love them with the love wherewith
you love Me."

The " Dialogue " was dictated by Catherine to her
secretaries while she was in a state of trance. Christ
in this book is symbolized as the Bridge leading
from heaven to earth — " that is, the earth of your
humanity is joined to the greatness of the Deity
thereby." Much of the " Dialogue " escapes the
modern reader, and some of it may repel him ; for
Catherine (unlike Dame Juliana of Norwich) accepts in
all its implications the dogmas of her time concerning

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 197

eternal damnation. But even the ultra-modern
and the uninitiated can appreciate passages of
extraordinary beauty and insight and depth and
range, that reveal vista after vista, abyss after
abyss. We are apt to think of mediaeval conceptions
as concrete, vivid, narrow, but wherein the literature
of religion shall we find passages vaster or more
sublime in scope than in this volume written in the
vernacular by a dyer's daughter ?

" How glorious," says the Voice of the Eternal,
"is that soul which has indeed been able to pass
from the stormy ocean to Me, the Sea Pacific, and
in that Sea, which is Myself, to fill the pitcher of
her heart."

Before we follow Catherine into the outer world,
let us join the mediaeval crowd who press into her
cell — verily to her " the Cell of Self -Knowledge."
Some are drawn by an irresistible spiritual attrac-
tion— the spell of her holiness and purity ; some have
come from idle curiosity, for it is reported that this
woman works miracles, and many wonders are told
of her. When her heart tended heavenward,
Raymund writes, " her limbs became stiff, her eyes
closed, and her body, raised in the air, often diffused
a perfume of exquisite sweetness."

Perhaps, however, as we crowd into the candle-
lighted dusk, we shall find no wonders, but only a
little group in white habits with black mantles,
and one frail woman of delicate features and piercing

198 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

grey eyes arranging the flowers that she loves —
roses, lilies and violets — and singing as she works.
And though we are strangers from another country
with alien methods of life and thought, yet we too
experience in her presence something of that ancient
awe and reverence that was felt in the fourteenth
century because, explain it as we may, we feel that
the springs of her being are fed from an inexhaustible
fountain-head of energy and of love, the " Sea
Pacific," " the endless fulfilling of all true desires."

In the World

It is amid scenes of plague and of blood that we see
Catherine next.

Powerful pens, both contemporary and inspired
by contemporary record, have built up for us the
horror of the Black Death. It is still so vivid in
the minds of many to-day that it seems almost like
a dark inexpugnable memory. Even after five
centuries we turn from the thought of it with terror
and loathing. But there was one who walked
familiarly through the stricken streets with firm
courage and smiling countenance ; who knew no
fear, no repugnance ; who tended the sick, who
comforted them with prayers and song, who pre-
pared the blackened bodies for burial, and buried
them with her own hands. Catherine, living on
a few raw herbs, and needing only occasionally a
couple of hours' sleep, ceased not her labours day
or night. She worked in the hospitals, in the most

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 199

infected parts of the city, and organized a little
band of sisters who went about with her doing
untiring service for the love of God.

The Plague of 1374 nearly depopulated Europe.
Siena lost eighty thousand of its people and never
recovered its prosperity. Eight out of eleven of
Lapa's grandchildren died.

" Then in her sacred saving hands
She took the sorrows of the lands,
With maiden palms she lifted up
The sick times blood-embittered cup,
And in her virgin garment furled
The faint limbs of a wounded world.
Clothed with calm love and clear desire,
She went forth in her soul's attire,
A missive fire.u

The time tested men as in a furnace, and some
of her best -beloved disciples were won by Catherine
in these scenes of horror. Her presence inspired
courage and hope, and many of the plague-stricken
were cured by her mere coming. And after the
Plague was over, she ceased not her ministrations
to the sick and the despairing. She healed old
family feuds — she penetrated into prisons — she
was no stranger at public executions. One of her
letters — one of the famous letters of the world —
written immediately after such an execution when
the blood was still warm on her garments, reveals
Catherine to us with a colour and fulness not else-
where achieved. The letter is written to Brother
Raymund in a crisis of emotion, in a whirl of passion-

200 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

ate and exalted feeling that pours red-hot from a
heart on fire.

A young nobleman from Perugia, Niccol6 di
Toldo, had uttered some unguarded words, half in
jest, against the Government of Siena ; and was
condemned to death. His first incredulity was
followed by an agony of pitiable terror and despair.
Catherine heard of his state and went to him in
prison. This is how she writes to Brother Raymund
after the execution :

" I went to visit him of whom you know, whereby
he received such great comfort and consolation that
he confessed, and disposed himself right well ; and
he made me promise by the love of God that,
when the time of execution came, I would be with
him ; and so I promised and did. Then in the
morning, before the bell tolled, I went to him, and
he received great consolation ; I brought him to
hear Mass, and he received the Holy Communion,
which he had never received since from the first.
That will of his was harmonized with and subjected
to the will of God, and there only remained a fear
of not being strong at the last moment ; but the
measureless and inflamed goodness of God forestalled
him, endowing him with so much affection and love
in the desire of God, that he could not stay without
Him, and he said to me : ' Stay with me, and do not
abandon me, so shall I fare not otherwise than well,
and I shall die content ' ; and he leaned his head
upon my breast. Then I exulted, and seemed to
smell his blood, and mine too, which I desire to shed

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 201

for the sweet Spouse Jesus, and, as the desire
increased in my soul and I felt his fear, I said :
' Take heart, sweet brother mine, for soon shall we
come to the nuptials ; thou wilt fare thither bathed
in the sweet blood of the Son of God, with the sweet
name of Jesus, which I wish may never leave thy
memory, and I shall be waiting for thee at the place
of execution.' Now think, father and son, how his
heart lost all fear, and his face was transformed from
sadness to joy, and he rejoiced, exulted, and said :
' Whence comes such grace to me, that the sweetness
of my soul should await me at the holy place of
execution ? ' See, he had reached such light that
he called the place of execution holy, and he said :
' I shall go all joyous and strong, and it will seem
to me a thousand years till I come thither, when I
think that you are awaiting me there ' ; and he spoke
so sweetly of God's goodness, that one might scarce
sustain it. I awaited him, then, at the place of
execution ; and I stayed there, waiting, with con-
tinual prayer, in the presence of Mary and of
Catherine, Virgin and Martyr. But before he
arrived, I placed myself down, and stretched out my
neck on the block ; but nothing was done to me,
for I was full of love of myself ; then I prayed and
insisted, and said to Mary that I wished for this
grace, that she would give him true light and peace
of heart at that moment, and then that I might
see him return to his end. Then was my soul so
full that, albeit a multitude of the people was there,
I could not see a creature, by reason of the sweet

202 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

promise made me. Then he came, like a meek
lamb, and, seeing me, he began to laugh, and he would
have me make the sign of the cross over him ; and
when he had received the sign I said : ' Down !
to the nuptials, sweet brother mine, for soon shalt
thou be in eternal life.' He placed himself down
with great meekness, and I stretched out his neck,
and bent down over him, and reminded him of the
blood of the Lamb. His mouth said naught but
Jesus and Catherine ; and, as he spoke thus, I
received his head into my hands, closing my eyes
in the Divine Goodness, and saying : I will."

Then she tells that it seemed to her as if the
heavens opened, and she saw God-and-Man, as might
the clearness of the sun be seen ; and He received the
blood and the desire and the soul of the victim, blood
into blood, flame into flame. But as the soul entered
into Christ's wounded side " she turned to me, even
as the bride, when she has come to her bridegroom's
door, turns back her eyes and her head to salute those
who have accompanied her, and thereby to show
sign of thanks. Then did my soul repose in peace and
quiet, in such great odour of blood that I could not
bear to free myself from the blood that had come upon
me from him. . . ." After reading such a letter
we begin to understand a little of what Catherine
meant by her oft -repeated words :

" Bathe yourself in the blood of Jesus Crucified.
Hide yourself in the open wound of His Side, and you
will behold the Secret of His Heart. There the sweet

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 203

Truth will make known to you that all that He did
for us he did only of love. Return Him love for
love."

It is little wonder that this is the picture of
Catherine that has impressed most vividly the
imagination of the world. This scene of injustice,
of ugliness, of brutality is transfigured into something
sublime ; all the coarse elements are burned up in a
fierce, pure flame. Seldom indeed have the " shambles
where we die " been penetrated by more purging
fire ; never has blood been more passionately realized
as a symbol of outpouring love and sacrifice. It is
difficult for us of this age to pass beyond the crude
physical horror, even to sympathize with Catherine's
fevered exaltation ; but Catherine dominated the
scene with her heroic soul, compelled it to yield up its
spiritual qualities — the qualities of burning charity,
of faith and of hope. She poured over this petty
judicial murder a radiance as of divine glory.

Nothing less than her passion of love could have
sent a quickening and purifying fire though the mass
of inertion and corruption which represented the
Church of her day. Catherine was the Church's
devoutest daughter, and in a sense her life was one
long martyrdom to its cause ; but, outspoken
daughter of the people, she did not scruple to call
by their true names the vices that festered in its
very core. Her letters, her " Dialogue," reveal an
appalling condition of things. The Pope was at
Avignon, practically a dependent on the French

204 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

king ; Rome was deserted and half in ruins ;
rapacious papal legates oppressed the cities, and the
clergy were corrupt almost beyond belief. "Those
who should be the temples of God are the stables of
swine," writes Catherine ; " they carry the fire of
hatred and vengeance and an evil will in their souls."
" Sweetest my daughter," God says to Catherine,
" thou seest how she (the Church) has soiled her face
with impurity and self-love, and become swollen
with the pride and avarice of those who feed at her
bosom." Money wrung from the starving poor was
squandered upon harlots ; unnatural vice prevailed
in the religious houses. " How ! " exclaims Catherine,
" God has not commanded the ground to open or wild
beasts to devour you ! " She writes to Don Giovanni
of the cells of Vallombrosa : " Ah me, ah me,
misfortunate my soul ! I see the Christian religion
lying a dead man, and I neither weep nor mourn over
him. I see darkness invading the light, for by the
very light of most holy faith, received in the blood
of Christ, I see men's sight become confused, and
the pupil of their eye dried up."

It seems likely that Catherine's attacks on the
clergy led to the calumnies that at first pursued her ;
there were evil tongues ready to impugn her chastity,
and cruel hands to cast her forth from the church
when she was in ecstasy. " Every evening, for many
years, when it began to grow dusk," says Brother
Thomas Caffarini, " she felt herself drawn by an
irresistible force to God, passing into a rapture which
generally lasted six hours, during which time she

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 205

conversed with the Eternal Wisdom, her bodily senses
remaining suspended . ' ' The Sacrament always stirred
in her a fervour of devotion ; and when the Prior
of St Dominic decreed that after Communion she
was to finish her prayers quickly and leave the
church, he commanded what was impossible. So
the friars used to thrust her out violently on a dung-
heap in the burning sun, to be kicked by the passers-
by ; while some devoted friends, bathed in tears,
stood round to protect her from insult and from the
cruel heat, until she should return out of her rapture.

The political ideal towards which Catherine
laboured so heroically was the restoration of the
Church to its original purity, the establishment by
it of a spiritual commonwealth to include all mankind
in happy love and service of God. The abyss between
the ideal and the actual has seldom been more wide
and deep ; and Catherine undertook a task beyond
mortal strength. That she should have accomplished
as much as she did bears witness, not only to the
li ving faith that upheld her, but to her extraordinary
knowledge of men and her unique qualities of states-
manship. The restoration of the papacy to Rome ;
the healing of the schism in the Church Visible ;
these were the two main issues to which Catherine
devoted her political activities.

At first Catherine looked to a crusade as the
supreme good to be desired. It was to serve a two-
fold object, spiritual and political ; to inflame men
with the love of Christ, and to weld together in
common aim the nations and princes of Christendom,

206 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

engaged in constant and deadly strife. The marauding
bands of mercenaries who were ravishing Europe
were to be enrolled under the cross, and the land freed
from a cruel scourge. When in 1373 Pope Gregory
proclaimed a crusade, Catherine flung herself with
all the ardour of her soul into the cause. Her letters
to kings and queens and princes are amazing in their
vigour and boldness. She wrote to the captains of
the mercenaries, to nobles, to private citizens, urging
upon each the considerations most likely to move
him. To that strange woman, Queen Joan of Naples,
she wrote when the idea was still in its infancy :
" Rise up, then, manfully, sweetest sister ! It is no
longer the time for sleep, for time sleeps not, but
ever passes like the wind. For love's sake, lift up
the standard of the most holy cross in your heart.
Soon we must uplift it, for as I understand the
Holy Father will proclaim the war against the
Turks."

The following, from a letter of hers to Charles V. of
France, shows that she was no respecter of persons : —
" I beg that you be no longer a worker of so great
harm and an obstacle of so great good as the recovery
of the Holy Land, and of those poor, wretched souls
who do not share in the blood of the Son of God.
Of which thing you ought to be ashamed, you and
the other Christian rulers ; for this is a very great
confusion in the sight of men and abomination in the
sight of God, that war should be made against one's
brother, and the enemy left alone. ... No more of
such folly and blindness ! I tell you, on behalf of

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 207

Christ crucified, that you delay no longer to make
this peace."

But all her efforts were abortive ; the Church
undergoing the " Babylonian Captivity " could no
longer enforce a truce of God in this century of
cruel wars — could no longer even claim undivided
spiritual allegiance — its own sons were rebelling
against it. Catherine had to abandon this cherished
desire as matters of more pressing immediacy were
thrust upon her.

We have tried to indicate with what tenderness,
with what sympathetic insight, Catherine dealt
with the very different temperaments of the friends
and disciples that surrounded her. The two popes
with whom she had personal relations were men
opposite in character, and she used her marvellous
intuition with the most delicate skill, encouraging
and stimulating Gregory XL, whose weakness was
notorious, curbing and soothing the violence of
Urban IV.

Gregory XI. was a Frenchman, small in stature
and in feature. He was a man of high aim and of
blameless life, modest and gentle in character, but
of irresolute will. His delicate face expressed that
uncertainty of purpose which tormented his life ; for,
taking advantage of his weakness, every cabal in turn
tried to gain dominion over him. Catherine wrote
to him letters of a frank outspokenness that amazes
us, calling him by the tender little names that a child
uses to address its father. " If a wound when neces-
sary is not cauterized or cut out with steel," she

2o8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

writes, " but simply covered with ointment, not only
does it fail to heal, but it infects everything, and
many a time death follows from it. Oh me, oh me,
sweetest ' Babbo ' mine ! This is the reason that
all the subjects are infected by impurity and iniquity.
Why does that shepherd go on using so much oint-
ment ? Such a man is a right hireling shepherd,
for, far from dragging his sheep from the power of
the wolf, he devours them himself." She dares even
suggest that if the Pope is not able to act with more
decision, he had better relinquish his high office.
" Since He has given you authority and you have
assumed it you should use your virtue and power ;
and if you are not willing to use it, it would be better
for you to resign what you have assumed ; more
honour to God and health to your soul would it be."
It is a surprise to many that popes should have
received with humility these bold and severe admoni-
tions addressed to them by a daughter of the people.
It is an even greater surprise to read that the republic
of Florence entrusted this woman who had neither
education, rank, nor standing, with a diplomatic
mission of the utmost importance and delicacy. It is
a surprise to us of the twentieth century ; but in the
fourteenth century it excited no comment. Catherine's
contemporaries recognized in her greatness and in-
spiration, and questioned no further. They held
that God bestowed His gifts independent of sex.
Here are Catherine's own words :

" ' Lord, how can I, who am so miserable and so

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 209

fragile, be useful to my fellow-creatures ? For my
sex is an obstacle, as Thou, Lord, knowest, as well
because it is contemptible in men's eyes, as because
propriety forbids any freedom of converse with the
other sex.' 'The word impossible belongeth not to
God. Am not I He who created the human race,
who formed both man and woman ? I pour out the
favour of My spirit on whom I will . . . and all are
equal before Me. Go forth without fear in spite of
reproach.' '

The rapacity and cruel extortions of the papal
officials in governing the states of the Church was
the immediate cause of the formation of the League
against the Pope. Florence headed the League, and
by 1375 eighty cities had joined it. Gregory at first
waged war with all the terrible spiritual weapons
at his command. Against Florence he hurled an
atrocious interdict, which not only paralyzed the
religious life of the republic, but ruined its trade.
Priests were forbidden to say Mass, all the privileges
granted to Florence were withdrawn, the persons and
possessions of Florentines living out of Florence were
given over as a prey to who could master them.
Driven to desperation, the Florentines had no alter-
native but open war.

To Catherine these events were an exceeding
anguish. Her heart bled for the wrongs of Florence,
but rebellion against the Pope was to her a mortal sin.
" I am dying of grief and cannot die," she writes.
After long brooding and prayer a vision came to her,
o

210 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

in which she was bidden to take an olive branch in
her hand, and bearing the cross upon her shoulders,
go forth and bring peace between the Holy Father
and his rebellious children. She believed that if only
the Pope would come to Italy, all would be well.
" Come as a brave and fearless man," she writes to
Gregory, " but take heed, as you value your life,
not to come with armed men, but with the cross in
your hand, like a meek lamb. If you do so you will
fulfil the will of God ; but if you come in other wise
you would not fulfil, but transgress it."

Already, however, the Pope had sent into Italy
ten thousand Breton mercenaries under the command
of Cardinal Count Robert of Geneva. This graceful
man of the world, this perpetrator of one of the most
cruel massacres of history — the Massacre of Cesena
— was afterwards to be elected Pope as Clement VII.,
the Anti-Pope, through whom the Great Schism
came into the Church.

Nothing illustrates more forcibly the unutterable
atrocities of the mercenaries of the Church, and the
appalling treachery and brutality of its high digni-
taries, than the story of the Massacre of Cesena.
Cesena was one of the cities loyal to the Pope, and
Count Robert quartered his mercenaries there for
the winter, giving them leave to take what they
needed without payment. The lusts and extortions
of these unscrupulous soldiers led to a rising in which
some hundreds of the Bretons were killed, and the
rest driven from the city. Count Robert, by false
promises, induced the citizens to lay down their arms

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 211

and to open the gates. The Bretons then fell upon
the inhabitants and slaughtered indiscriminately
men, women and children. Four thousand of the
inhabitants were slain ; five thousand were driven
out to die on the roads, or seek what shelter they
might in the neighbouring towns.

It is only one who has entered into the very heart
of love that can experience in its full horror the
hideousness of this deed of hatred. Even the know-
ledge of God often brings increase of sorrow, for, says
the Voice of the Eternal in the " Dialogue," the
more the soul knows of My Truth "the more pain and
intolerable grief she feels at the offences committed
against Me." When the offences are committed by
God's own Church and people, the contrast between
the ideal and the actual is almost too sharp to be
borne. It is a marvel that this " pain and intolerable
grief " did not paralyse Catherine's faculties and
powers ; did not jar beyond remedy her highly
strung organization. But her calm, her grip of
practical affairs never deserted her. To the Floren-
tines she wrote, imploring them to seek submission ;
to Gregory she wrote, urging forbearance. The
Florentines summoned her to their city, that she
might give them her personal help and counsel in
their dire straits.

The chief men of the city came out to meet her
and she was received with all honour. The republic
was divided by contending factions with different
administrative functions who held opposed views.
After many conferences, Catherine was induced by

212 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the leaders of the moderate party to undertake a
mission to Avignon and present their case to the Pope.
She was to be the forerunner of an embassy armed
with full powers to ratify peace on the terms she
had arranged. So with her little band of disciples,
including Brother Raymund, Stephen Maconi, and
her three beloved women friends of the order,
Catherine set out, and reached Avignon on i8th
June 1376.

The Pope's palace on the hill — " the finest and
strongest building in the world," says Froissart —
without, a great fortress of stone ; within, soft and
brilliant with all the luxuries of the age — dominated
the little town of Avignon. Its magnificent walls
of squared stone, flanked by thirty-nine towers,
enclosed a centre of wealth and learning. Churches
and monasteries and public buildings were there
in such number that the myriad music of the
bell towers gave the city the name of "la ville
sonnante." The great cardinals kept the state of
princes ; gorgeous cavalcades clattered along the
narrow streets ; cloth of gold and scarlet shone in the
southern sun. Nor did Avignon lack the even more
dazzling pageant of ladies' apparel, for the sisters and
nieces of the great dignitaries, and other ladies who
assumed these titles to which they had no right, made
the streets blaze with their extravagant splendour.
Avignon had changed little since Petrarch wrote :
" I know by experience that there is no piety there,
no charity, no faith, no reverence for God nor any
fear of Him, nothing holy, nothing just, nothing

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 213

worthy of man. Love, purity, decency, candour are
banished from it. All things are full of lies and
hypocrisy. The voices of angels conceal the designs
of demons."

Catherine and her party were lodged in the palace
of an absent cardinal and two days after her arrival
she had private audience with the Pope, Brother
Raymund acting as interpreter, for Gregory knew
no Italian, and Catherine no Latin. Later, she
pleaded the cause of the Florentines in full consistory,
with such persuasion, that the Pope left the whole
matter in her hands. " The Holy Father," says
Raymund, " in my presence and by my mouth,
said to her : ' In order to show you that I sincerely
desire peace, I commit the entire negotiation into
your hands ; only be careful of the honour of the
Church.' "

Gregory fell immediately under the sway of
Catherine's burning personality. Her mission
would have been crowned with immediate success,
but for the bad faith of the Florentines. Weeks
passed — months — and still the embassy that was
to have followed her delayed. " I doubt not, my
daughter," said the Pope, " that they have deceived
you as they deceived me." And] so it proved ; for
when the envoys at last arrived, they refused to con-
sult with Catherine or to acknowledge her mission.

While Catherine was waiting in Avignon she set
herself a task the magnitude of which it is difficult
to realize — no less than to induce the Pope to return
to Rome. A woman, Bridget, Queen of Sweden,

214 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

had already persuaded one Pope back for a short
space of time ; but after a few months he had
returned to Avignon. Catherine was convinced
that there would be no peace in the Church, no
peace in Italy., till the Pope was once more in the
Eternal City. Alone she set her strength against
the dead weight of selfishness, of self-interest, that
kept the popes at Avignon. Nearly all the cardinals
were French ; their possessions, their glories, their
pleasures were bound up with Avignon. Rome
was disturbed ; Italy actively rebellious ; prudence,
inclination, material considerations, were all against
the journey. Catherine had nothing to oppose to
this tremendous force of influence but a vague ideal.
And yet, by sheer will-power, she conquered, over-
rode all obstacles, infused courage into the weak
Pope, stimulated his sense of duty, sustained his
wavering resolution, soothed his fears. It was not
enough to incite him by strong spiritual appeals;
she had to work upon every part of his nature.
The cardinals frightened him into the belief that he
would be poisoned in Rome, or die of malaria ;
Catherine had to show him the unlikelihood of such
catastrophes. She even advised him to conceal
the date of his departure, so overwhelming was the
opposition to his design. " I beseech your Holiness
in the name of Christ Crucified to make haste," she
wrote to him. " Adopt a holy deception ; let it seem
that you are going to delay for a time, and then do it
swiftly and suddenly, for the more quickly it is
done, the sooner will you be freed from these tor-

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 215

merits and troubles." So great was the opposition,
that Gregory no longer dared to see Catherine ;
communication had to be conducted by letters and
messengers. At last, after weeks and months, all
obstacles, all scruples, were overcome, and the Pope
left the palace. His father threw himself on the
ground imploring him not to go, and Gregory had
to step over the prostrate figure. In twenty-two
galleys the Pope and his followers set sail from
Marseilles for Genoa. Catherine left Avignon the
same day by another route.

One of the most dramatic episodes in this dramatic
story took place at Genoa. Catherine and the
Pope were both in the city. Even now, at the
eleventh hour, it was in Gregory's heart to retreat.
He desired to see Catherine, but dared not summon
her openly to his presence, lest it should excite
comment ; neither could he visit her by day with
dignity, for the room where she lodged was besieged
by a throng of people, eager to see the saint and
to listen to her words. So he came to her in the
late evening, wrapped in the disguise of his cloak.
What passed between them is not known ; we only
know that the Pope's courage returned, and he
proceeded to Rome, reaching the holy city on I7th
January 1377. We find this note affixed to one of
Catherine's prayers : " This prayer was made at
Genoa by the said virgin, to persuade Pope Gregory
from the project of returning back : things contrary
to the journey to Rome having been deliberated on
in the consistory."

216 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

So Catherine accomplished the first of her great
political enterprises, and brought the popes per-
manently back to the Eternal City.

She accomplished a second great purpose too —
the reconciliation of Florence to the papal authority
— accomplished it, however, almost at the price of
that martyrdom she so much desired. In 1378
Gregory sent Catherine on a second embassy to
Florence. She made three orations before three
bodies of magistrates ; but for seventeen months
Florence had been under the interdict, and the city
was in a pitiable condition of poverty and misery.
A rabble of people, incensed to fury against the
Pope, set out to murder his emissary. Catherine
was in a distant part of the town in a little house
on the hillside of St George with her disciples and
women. The armed mob found her in the garden.
She came to meet them, and, kneeling before the
leader, bared her throat and bade him strike. " I
am Catherine ; do to me whatever God will permit ;
but I charge you, in the name of the Almighty, to
hurt none of these who are with me." At these
words the courage of the rabble failed, and they
went away in confusion. Later, when the tumult
had calmed down, she persuaded the rulers of the
city to listen to her counsels, and she had the supreme
satisfaction of seeing peace signed between the
unruly children and their spiritual father (1378).

In this year Gregory died in Rome, and the
events following his death led to the Great Schism.

There were sixteen cardinals at Rome, four

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 217

Italians, one Spanish, the rest French. The people
of Rome clamoured for the election of a Roman,
or at least an Italian, Pope ; threatening mobs
assembled under the walls of the Vatican. The
cardinals, with all due regard for forms and cere-
monies, elected as Pope a Neapolitan, the Arch-
bishop of Bari, who afterwards took the name of
Urban ; but the mob, hearing a rumour that Tebal-
deschi, the aged Cardinal of St Peter's, was elected,
burst into the palace, and the cardinals in a panic
forced Tebaldeschi to assume against his will the
papal robe, and to receive the tumultuous congratu-
lations of the mob. Next day, when the noise had
subsided, the cardinals ratified the election of
Urban, the customary acts of homage were paid him
and he was installed with all due honour.

Urban was in every respect a striking contrast to
his predecessor. Like Gregory, he was a man of
pure life and high aim ; but where Gregory failed
through infirmity of purpose, Urban failed through
arbitrary violence. He was an Italian, a Neapolitan
though not a Roman ; short of stature, thick-set,
sallow in complexion ; uncouth, lacking in grace
and culture, easily moved to anger. He was
reported by his contemporaries " a terrible man,
and greatly frightens people by his acts and words."
He had a true zeal for reform, but he set about the
task with a fierce and tactless unrestraint that soon
set the whole Church buzzing round his ears. He
insulted the cardinals at the very first sitting, calling
them in public, " fools " and " liars " ; he levied

218 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

injurious accusations against the bishops. In vain
Catherine wrote to him to " restrain a little those
too quick movements with which nature inspires
you." In vain she sought to check his ungovernable
actions. At last he made himself so unbearable to
the cardinals that they were driven to snatch at
the first pretext to rid themselves of him. Impossible
to enter here into the numerous intrigues which
complicated the situation. Suffice it to say that all
the cardinals, except the aged Tebaldeschi, assembled
at Anagni ; proclaimed that Urban had been elected
through fear of the populace, and was no true Pope,
but Antichrist ; and proceeded to elect a second
Pope, no other than the infamous Count Robert of
Geneva, who took the name of Clement VII. Urban
immediately nominated twenty-six new cardinals :
two Frenchmen, the rest Italian.

So was accomplished the Great Schism which for
forty years divided Christendom into two camps
of deadly enemies.

It is difficult to conceive the anguish that these
events caused Catherine. Her whole exterior life
had been set to bring peace within the Church ; and
now she was to witness its very body cut in twain,
the Pope, her "sweet Christ on earth," deserted,
insulted by his nearest sons. She was, indeed,
to see the situation close, in all its naked horror,
for Urban, feeling that her presence would strengthen
his position, summoned her to Rome.

And so we arrive at the last stage of Catherine's
life, her stay in the Holy City — a city divided against

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 219

itself, decayed and in ruins, the prey to corruption
and intrigue, the Breton mercenaries of the Anti-
Pope soon to be battering against its walls.
Catherine came with some forty of her disciples and
friends ; came with body worn by physical in-
firmities to encounter acutest mental and spiritual
anguish ; but her will and her courage never
wavered. Her firm determination to live only upon
alms brought her little band often to the verge of
starvation. Yet she never slackened in her fiery
correspondence, and helped to win Germany,
Hungary and Sweden to acknowledge Urban's
claims. She spoke before the Pope and cardinals
in full consistory, and when she had ended, Urban
exclaimed : " Behold, my brethren, how con-
temptible we are before God, when we give way to
fear. This poor woman puts us to shame ; whom
I call so, not out of contempt, but by reason of the
weakness of her sex, which should make her timid
even if we were confident ; whereas, on the contrary,
it is she who now encourages us."

In this crisis of life and death Catherine bethought
her of the little hermitages scattered all over Italy,
where men of holy lives devoted themselves self-
lessly to God's service. She had seen at close
quarters the scheming ecclesiastics of Rome ; not
from them was spiritual force to be drawn ; but the
hermits would make about the Pope a bulwark of
sanctity and righteousness, and bear witness to the
truth. So she urged upon Urban the advisability
of summoning to Rome these humble servants of

220 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

God. The suggestion seemed to Urban worth
trying ; and to all the scattered cells, where for
long years the recluses had lived in undisturbed
solitude and prayer, the call was sent. Catherine
wrote with her own hand burning letters, invoking
them to come to the Church's aid. It was the
expedient of an idealist ; to Catherine its non-success
must have been tragic. For many hermits refused
outright to leave their cells, among them Catherine's
friend, Brother William Flete of England. Of those
who obeyed, Catherine herself gives us a pathetic
picture : " Old men," she says of two Dominican
hermits from the Umbrian plain, " old men, and
far from well, who have lived such a long time in
their peace, they have made the laborious journey,
and are now valiantly suppressing their home-
sickness, and unsaying their involuntary com-
plaints." But such as these could not prove the
unconquerable allies that Catherine had hoped to
find. Her disappointment is well seen in a scorn-
ful letter she addresses to a recalcitrant solitary.
" Now really, the spiritual life is quite too lightly
held if it is lost by change of place. Apparently
God is an accepter of places, and is found only in a
wood, and not elsewhere in time of need ! "

It was in this hour of bitter disillusion, when she
was only thirty-three years old, that Catherine died.
Early in 1379 began the three months' death agony—
an anguish so long drawn out, so painful, that we of
this age can hardly bear to read it. To Catherine
herself it seemed that what she endured she endured

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA 221

in some mystical sense for the Church ; that in her
own body she was expiating the sins of humanity.
To Brother Raymund she writes : "In this, and
in many other ways which I cannot narrate, my
life is being distilled and consumed in this sweet
Spouse ; I in this fashion and the glorious martyrs
with their blood. . . . This body keeps without any
food, even without a drop of water ; with such great
and sweet bodily torments as I never endured at any
time, so that my life hangs upon a thread."

Again and again we stand wholly at a loss before
the mediaeval conception of suffering. Our aim is
to eliminate suffering from life, not to seek and to
welcome it. Suffering is no longer regarded as
expiation for personal or for general sin, or as a
means of purification. Baron von Hiigel has perhaps
in the following passage got closer than any other
modern commentator to the mediaeval conception :

" But with Him (Christ) and alone with Him, and
those who still learn and live from and by Him, there
is the union of the clearest, keenest sense of all the
mysterious depth and breadth and length and
height of human sadness, suffering and sin, and in
spite of this and through this and at the end of this,
a note of conquest and of triumphant joy.

" And here, as elsewhere in Christianity, this is
achieved, not by some artificial facile juxta-position ;
but the soul is allowed to sob itself out ; and all
this its pain gets fully faced and willed, gets taken
up into the conscious life. Suffering thus becomes

222 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the highest form of action, a divinely potent means
of satisfaction, recovery and enlargement for the
soul — the soul with its mysteriously great conscious-
ness of pettiness and sin, and its immense capacity
for joy in self -donation."

" A note of conquest and of triumphant joy." It is
on this note that we would close our imperfect sketch
of Catherine of Siena. Increase of love, the Voice
says in the " Dialogue," means increase of grief. By
the light of the Eternal, the cruelty, the waste, the
ruin of this world show with a distinctness that
is terrible ; but all-embracing Love understands,
pardons, heals. It finds no sore too festering, no
wound too ugly for its tender power. Catherine
was no immured nun, ignorant of the worst facts
of life. She faced them all, exposed them all ;
and we, immersed in material problems, find inspira-
tion in her courage that fronted without quailing
vice, disease, death. By that courage, fed as she
believed from divine sources, she scaled the ladders
of heaven, and on earth overcame the forces of
darkness and of evil. If politically she misread the
signs of the times, if she committed errors and
experienced failures, it was because she shared in
the imperfections common to all here below. But
no life has surpassed hers in sacrifice and devotion,
no one has borne more flaming witness to the
Unseen, to its inexhaustible fountains of love, than
Catherine of Siena.

ST TERESA
The Seventh Mansion

TO compress the quintessence of character into a
few lines requires the skill of a poet. Only the
poet has the genius of insight that can penetrate into
the recesses of personality ; only the poet has the gift
to bring back intact into this world the wonder and
beauty of the secret he has won. Some natures are
so infinitely complex that without the poet's help
we might miss the reading of them altogether. So,
first of all, let us go to Crashaw for his splendid lines
on St Teresa :

" O thou undaunted daughter of desires !
By all thy dower of lights and fires,
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove,
By all thy lives and deaths of love,
By thy large draughts of intellectual day
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they ;
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire,
By the full kingdom of that final kiss,
That seized thy parting soul and seal'd thee His ;
By all the heavens thou hast in Him,
Fair sister of the seraphim !
By all of Him we have in thee
Leave nothing of myself in me :
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die.!i
223

224 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Here we have Teresa caught for us at the point
of most burning intensity ; her supreme spiritual
conquest, her superb intellectual mastery, fixed in
memorable language.

It is of special importance in the case of St Teresa
to start with the flaming impression which the life
and the books of this " sweet incendiary " have made
upon a soul alive to their greatness ; for her life and
her books offer so many fascinating problems to
psychology and metaphysics, that there is a danger
of our becoming absorbed in processes and details,
and so losing sight of ultimates. Amid experiences
overwhelming in their wonder and their terror, St
Teresa has retained an intellectual balance, a power
of analysis and description, that render her works of
extraordinary scientific value. The various degrees
of prayer, the various kinds of vision, the various
stages of spiritual progress, are set forth with
unequalled force and lucidity ; she uses imagery
restrained, yet full of light and colour. No other
mystic has brought us so close to the states of mind
and body that precede rapture and ecstasy, and persist
while these endure . And therefore in the study of her
classifications and carefully measured divisions, it
is well never to lose sight of the fact that they are but
the scaffolding of that Interior Castle of the Seven
Mansions where the soul finds union with the divine.
It would be unfitting and unfair were the intellectual
greatness of the saint to overshadow her spiritual
greatness, were her accuracies of description to
diminish in our eyes the soaring spontaneity of her

ST TERESA 225

experience. We would endeavour to remember her
not as the " psychologist among the saints," but as
the " undaunted daughter of desires."

Of all the great saints, Teresa is nearest to us in
point of time. She is modern in the importance she
attaches to observation and reasoning ; modern
in her criticism of men and things, and in the doubts
that continually assail her. For this reason, perhaps,
her books have special appeal for the modern mind.
She found her way experimentally, without guidance ;
she went by an intricate path, while her friends
and confessors were the cause of cruel misgivings.
We can follow her with comprehension, if not with
sympathy, along a great part of her route ; and her
methods enable us to enter into subtleties of mysticism
usually beyond the grasp of all but the initiated.
She succeeds in making clear the most elusive con-
ditions of soul. Her writings on prayer, on vision,
on union, exceed in importance, if not in interest, for
us of this age, the life work which she set herself —
namely, the reform of the Carmelite Order.

At the first glance Teresa's life seems to be sharply
cut into two portions. On the one side of the divid-
ing line we have the contemplative struggling for
decades up the difficult way of mysticism, until at
last she reaches the final consummation. On the
other side of the dividing line — the latter portion of
her life — we see the indomitable woman of action,
travelling in all weathers about the country in a cart
without springs that she may establish her Reform.
On the one side we have a record of spiritual adven-

226 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

tures in an air so pure that only the boldest may
follow ; on the other we read of worldly encounters
with irate town councillors, angry provincials and
dangerous papal nuncios. On one side stands the
mystic " seized with such great transports of the
love of God that I seem to be dying of the desire
to be united to Him." On the other stands the
foundress, eminently practical, not without sound
common-sense and a saving humour, bound, as she
herself tells us, " to accommodate her complexion to
his with whom she conversed ; glad if he was glad ;
sad with the sad. In fact to be all things to all men
in order to win them all."

Looking more closely, however, we find that there
was no arbitrary division in Teresa's life, but only,
at a certain point, a consummation, an attainment,
a synthesis. She was no longer rapt out of herself
by God, but God had become the interior principle
of her life. And the fruit of this union was action —
it was destined for no other purpose, she tells us,
but " the incessant production of work, work."
Mystic and foundress, contemplative and woman of
action, she is thus fundamentally one ; and mystic
and contemplative Teresa remained, through all the
activity of her reform.

Teresa was forty-seven years old when, at the
command of her confessor, she wrote her first auto-
biography. This was the book which for thirteen
years lay in the hands of the Inquisition, after which
time it was pronounced free from all taint of heresy.
Like all her works, it was written in Spanish, and to

ST TERESA 227

write in the vernacular was in itself suspect. The
manuscript, in Teresa's fine, upright writing, lies in the
reliquary of the Escorial at Madrid, beside an original
tract of St Augustine's. She gave the story of her
life merely to elucidate her states of soul. We cannot
do better than follow her method, summarizing her
account and supplementing it from other sources.
Teresa was born of a noble family at Avila in
Old Castile in 1515, two years before Luther nailed
his ninety-seven propositions against the Sale of
Indulgences upon the church door. Avila, warlike
and chivalrous, used to be called the City of the
Knights, but after Teresa's death it became the City
of the Saints. Its solid walls still stand, with its
cathedral built into the ramparts, to symbolize that
God First was the Rock of Defence. The hill-city
dominated a wide stretch of country, sparsely
cultivated — a landscape grey, monotonous, broken
by granite boulders and pine forests, not without a
certain wild dignity and beauty. Within the great
houses of the city, life was a little grey, monotonous,
austere, ordered by a severe ceremonial, even to
minutest details ; it had a certain beauty of dignity
and balance, of courtliness and self-control. For
these virtues the Spaniard has always been famous,
and Spain was then at the very height of her develop-
ment and power. The New World was dazzling
her senses — two of Teresa's brothers sought their
fortunes overseas — but the spirit of adventure, of
inquiry, was as yet only tentatively applied to realms
other than the physical. Those with discerning

228 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

eyes might perhaps already have divined the seeds
of decay — in the intoxication of riches found in the
New World ; in the heavy weight of persecution that
was to crush out the life and spirit of the nation.
But no dark forebodings disturbed the grave citizens
of Avila. In the quiet of her home the child Teresa
pored with her little brother Roderigo over the Lives
of the Saints. One of the pictures most treasured in
history shows us these two babies setting forth to
find martyrdom at the hands of the Moors — the Moors
whose fierce raids were still a potent memory in the
minds of the citizens. The spot is still pointed out
where the children were met by a relative and turned
back.

As a child, the romances of religion captured
Teresa's imagination ; as a girl, the romances of
chivalry took tumultuous possession of her. Teresa's
mother, delicate in health, spiritual in soul, could not
wean herself from the enthralment of these exciting
tales. Their colour, their movement, their glamour,
were an irresistible attraction in the severe monotony
of Spanish life. Teresa, more ardent, plunged
" soul forward, headlong into a book's profound."
It cannot be doubted that the delight that the girl
had in this reading exercised a great effect on her
after life. We do not know whether Teresa ever
experienced the passion of love ; but we know that
the romance of love intoxicated her imagination and
dominated her thoughts. Mrs Cunningham Graham,
in her interesting book, which deals however princi-
pally with the outer episodes of the saint's life,

ST TERESA 229

describes Teresa's appearance in detail : " She was tall
and well proportioned ; her brow fair and spacious,
encircled by an aureole of black curling hair ; her
eyebrows rather straight than arched and somewhat
thick ; her eyes black and round with rather heavy
lids, although not large, well-placed, lively, and so full
of merriment, that when they laughed, their laughter
communicated itself irresistibly to those around her.
Her hands were small and very beautiful, with long,
tapering fingers. Her manners possessed an inde-
scribable fascination, which charmed and magnetized
all who came within the circle of her influence."

When her father put her for a year under the care
of the nuns of an Augustinian convent at Avila, it
was merely to remove her from the influence of some
worldly relatives who, after her mother's death, were
obtaining too great a hold upon the girl. He had no
wish to see his favourite daughter a nun ; nor had
conventual life any attraction for Teresa. Yet she
took the veil in spite of the strong opposition of father
and relatives. The driving force that impelled her
to do this was the fear of hell. " I remember,"
she writes, " that when I was leaving my father's
house, I believe that at my death my feelings will not
be greater than they were then. ... As I had no love
of God to remove the love I had for my father and
friends, all I did then was with such great violence,
that if our Lord had not helped me, my own
considerations would never have been able to
advance me forward."

It might have been thought that out of Fear could

230 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

come no good thing. At best it is the lowest motive
for conduct ; at worst it paralyses, demoralizes,
blights, destroys. No one achieved a more supreme
conquest over fear than St Teresa, no one has more
vigorously extolled courage ; but with fear as a
starting-point we can better realize the vast tracts
of distance accomplished by her soul.

The Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation, in which
Teresa made her profession, lies in the valley below
Avila, about half-a-mile to the north of the city walls.
The Carmelites claim an antiquity superior to that
of any other order — they look back to Elijah as their
founder, if not Enoch. These pretensions led to a
scandalous controversy in the seventeenth century ;
for the Bollandists, in certain volumes of the " Acta
Sanctorum," made fun of the idea that Enoch could
have founded the Carmelites, since Scripture made
no mention of any Carmelite being shut up in the ark ;
and none of Noah's sons had made vows of chastity.
The controversy raged ten years, and the Carmelites,
in revenge for this aspersion upon their claims,
obtained from the Spanish Inquisition a condemna-
tion, not only of the volumes containing the passages
objected to, but of the whole series of fourteen volumes.
Also they procured a papal bull threatening any who
should question the origin of their order with excom-
munication. It is, however, quite possible that since
the time of Elijah a community of Jewish hermits
may have inhabited Mount Carmel. Christian hermits
certainly dwelt there till the Crusades drove them
from the Holy Land. The Carmelites came to Europe

ST TERESA 231

in 1238; in 1245 the Rule was mitigated by Pope
Innocent IV. ; in 1396 flesh meat was allowed to the
White Friars of England ; and in 1432 many other
mitigations were made.

Thus it came about that conventual life was by no
means arduous under the Mitigated Rule. The nuns
of the Incarnation were permitted to go to and fro,
and leave was easily obtained to pay long visits to
relatives and friends. Even within the convent walls
life was not the strait existence sometimes imagined.
The convent buildings, " delightful and spacious,"
says Teresa, had large cloisters and a fine church.
Pleasant gardens and orchards surrounded the house,
and a clear and abundant stream ran through the
grounds. Visitors, men as well as women, were
allowed access to the convent parlour, where they
mixed freely with the nuns. Young gallants clat-
tered down from Avila to see a sister or a cousin, and
bring them the news of the world ; the sound of talk
and laughter penetrated even into the remoter rooms
of the convent, where the nuns sat spinning while
the sunshine crept over the red-brick floors.

Teresa had joined the Carmelites because they
had a reputation for a stricter observance than the
Augustinians, and it was terrible for her to discover
that she had merely exchanged one pleasure-loving
existence for another. She was urged by an interior
need, indefinite, vague, towards a perfection she could
not reach. But her own nature, and all the circum-
stances of her life, were fighting against her. She
had no gift of meditation ; often she felt a positive

232 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

distaste to prayer. Further, any effort after greater
retirement in the noisy convent (where there were one
hundred and eighty nuns) was regarded as singular
by the other sisters. " The road to religion is so
little travelled," says Teresa, "that a sister who
wishes to follow it has more to fear from her com-
panions than from all the devils." A more serious
obstacle barred her way of progress. She could not
wean herself from the delight she took in conversa-
tion with visitors in the convent parlour. One
" person " whom she met there had possibly some
special emotional appeal. To us the pleasure seems
a harmless one, but to her it was a temptation con-
tinually drawing her away from the Source of life.
God called her, but she only listened with half a
mind. The strength of the lure is shown by the fact
that for eighteen years Teresa combated it in vain.
She felt the shame of her divided allegiance ; she be-
lieved that she was offering an insult to God by deny-
ing Him after she had vowed herself to His service,
by putting her own self-gratification before His will ;
but the next day found her again in the convent
parlour. " God called me on the one hand, and on
the other the world ; all the things of God gave me
great pleasure, but the vanities of the world held me
in chains ; and it seemed I had a desire to reconcile
these two contraries, which are such enemies one to
another — namely, a spiritual life, and the pleasures
and pastimes of the world. In prayer I endured
great affliction, because my soul was not master, but
a slave ; and thus I was unable to retire within my

ST TERESA 233

heart . . . without at the same time shutting up
with me a thousand vanities." The energy that
prompted her Reform in after years, drew its strength
partly from her own difficult experience . Few writers
of any sect or creed have spoken so bitterly as Teresa
against conventual life as she knew it. She calls it
" a short cut to hell." " Rather let fathers marry
their daughters very meanly than allow them to face
the dangers of ten worlds rolled into one, where
youth, sensuality and the devil invite and incline
them to follow things worldly of the worldly."
This is strong language ; but in the regulations Teresa
afterwards laid down for her own nuns we may learn
the nature of one of the dangers that threatened
conventual life. " The sisters should have no inter-
course with the confessor except at the confessional.
The very existence of our institution depends on our
preventing these black devotees destroying the
spouses of Christ. The devil enters that way
unperceived."

Teresa, upright and clear-sighted, is thus seen
to be intensely aware of the many evils and tempta-
tions besetting conventual life. Even the less
harmful ones were a snare to her, and hampered
her progress along the spiritual road that already
she was beginning to walk. For during these
eighteen years, by slow degrees, by painful experi-
ment, Teresa was learning the path of prayer. She
went with stumbling feet, and without guidance.
The way was new, and her confessors had no know-
ledge of the ground. The further she travelled

234 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the more perplexed did they become, and the more
ignorantly did they deal with unfamiliar conditions.
Teresa speaks of " the affliction that arises from
meeting with a confessor who is so cautious and
has such little experience that he thinks nothing is
secure ; who fears everything, suspects everything
. . . immediately ascribes everything, either to the
devil, or to melancholy. . . . The poor soul which
is possessed with the same fear, and goes to her
confessor as to her judge, who, notwithstanding,
condemns her, cannot help feeling great trouble
and uneasiness."

At the end of eighteen years, when Teresa was
forty, the conflict within herself suddenly ceased.
The temptation of the " world," as represented by
the convent parlour, was overcome for ever. In a
moment she achieved complete self-surrender. The
death of her father ; a picture of the Christ " all
covered with wounds " — these were the occasions of
her "conversion." She had conquered the lure of
outer things — she had been long in conquering it —
but she was now only at the first stage of her journey.
Problems infinitely more intricate, trials infinitely
more disturbing, were to alternate during the next
seventeen years of her life with experiences of
ineffable bliss. We may follow her progress up to
this moment of conversion in her own wonderful
allegory of the Watered Garden.

Her progress is marked by degrees of prayer.
Prayer, as understood by Teresa, is not petition ;
it is the preparation of the soul for an influx of

ST TERESA 235

the divine. Here is a brief summary of her
allegory :

" A beginner must look upon himself as making
a garden wherein our Lord may take his delight,
but in a soil unfruitful and abounding in weeds. . . .
It seems to me that the garden may be watered in
four ways : by water taken out of a well, which is
very laborious ; or with water raised by means of
an engine and buckets drawn by a windlass — it
is a less troublesome way than the first, and gives
more water ; or by a stream or brook, whereby the
garden is watered in a much better way ... or by
showers of rain when our Lord Himself waters it
without labour on our part — and this way is incom-
parably better than all the others of which I have
spoken." Teresa then proceeds to describe in
detail the various degrees of prayer — the prayer that
is made by our own paltry efforts, and the prayer
that is inspired by an increasing outpouring of
divine life.

The first degree of prayer is Mental Prayer,
dependent on Meditation. (Vocal Prayer is an
antecedent stage which Teresa does not mention.)
" The soul which begins to walk in the way of mental
prayer with resolution, and is determined not to
care much, neither to rejoice nor to be greatly
afflicted, whether sweetness and tenderness fail
it, or our Lord grants them, has already travelled
a great part of the road." There are two dangers
to be guarded against at this stage. The first is
the neglect of the body. " Take care, then, of the

236 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

body, for the love of God, because at many other
times the body must serve the soul ; and let recourse
be had to some recreations — holy ones — such as
conversation, or going out into the fields, as the
confessor shall advise." " Experience is an excellent
schoolmaster in everything, for it makes us under-
stand what suits us ; and in all things God is served,
for His yoke is sweet." The second danger is,
to aspire to the supernatural states of prayer before
the soul is called. Teresa is at one with all the great
mystics in the strong belief that there should be no
indiscreet forcing of the spiritual life.

The second degree of prayer is the Prayer of
Quiet. " Here the soul begins to be recollected ;
it is now touching on the supernatural . . . this is a
gathering together of the faculties of the soul within
itself, in order that it may have the fruition of that
contentment in greater sweetness ; but the faculties
are not lost, neither are they asleep ; the will alone
is occupied in such a way that, without knowing
that it has become a captive, it gives a simple
consent to become the prisoner of God. . . . The
Prayer of Quiet, then, is a little spark of the true
love of Himself, which our Lord begins to enkindle
in the soul ; and His Will is, that the soul should
understand what this love is by the joy it brings."

The third degree of prayer is the Prayer of Union.
In this state the soul is awake, and all the rest of
the world asleep. " The pleasure, sweetness and
delight are incomparably greater than in the former
state of prayer ; and the reason is that the waters

ST TERESA 237

of grace have risen up to the neck of the soul, so
that it can neither advance nor retreat — nor does
it know how to do so ; it seeks only the fruition
of exceeding bliss. . . . This state of prayer seems
to me a most distinct union of the whole soul with
God, but for this, that His Majesty gives to the
faculties leave to be intent upon, and have the
fruition of the great work He is doing. ... In the
prayer (of Quiet) the soul, which would willingly
neither stir nor move, is delighting in the holy repose
of Mary ; but in this prayer (the third degree) it can
be like Martha also."

The fourth degree of prayer includes Ecstasy
and Rapture. Beyond Ecstasy, beyond Rapture,
is the final stage of all, the Spiritual Marriage, the
Seventh Mansion. But these heights were not
trodden by Teresa till a later date, and before,
with much stumbling, we attempt to follow her, we
may note what safeguards and warnings Teresa has
already set in the path ; what practical conclusions
she has drawn from her experience.

We have pointed out that Teresa warns the
disciple not to go even beyond the first stage of
prayer without a special call from God. Her
Autobiography is not a book written for the guidance
of others, but a relation drawn up by order of her
confessor on the state of her own soul. She is
never tired of reminding her nuns that the con-
templative life is not necessary for our salvation,
nor an essential to it, and that the lack of it will not
prevent any sister from reaching great perfection.

238 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

She expressly states that the withdrawal from
bodily objects is only to be attempted by a soul
that has made very great progress, " for until then
it is clear that the Creator must be sought for through
His creatures. . . . We are not angels, for we have a
body ; and to seek to make ourselves angels while
we are on the earth, and so much on the earth as
I was, is an act of folly."

Teresa's marvellous classification of the degrees
of prayer seems to concentrate into small space the
infinitudes of distance covered. To realize these
even dimly we have to remember how many mystics
have never gone beyond the second degree of prayer,
the Prayer of Quiet. Indeed, to many, the term
Mysticism is synonymous with passivity, and the
whole business of prayer has been to hush the clamour
of the senses and all the sounds of earth, so that the
still small voice may be heard. To many great
souls, both in the East and in the West, the Prayer
of Quiet has been the attainment of the final goal.
But to Teresa it is but a stage, and an early stage,
on the journey. Passivity is but the " rest of
motion " ; in contemplation are to be found the
springs of action ; in the third degree of prayer
Martha combines with Mary ; and the fourth
degree of prayer is the " time of resolutions, of
heroic determinations, of the living energy of good
desires." Teresa emphatically states that union
with the divine is often reached rather by work than
by prayer. " When I see souls so very careful
about being attentive at their prayers, and about

ST TERESA 239

understanding them also," she writes, " so that it
seems they dare not so much as stir or divert their
thoughts, lest they should lose the little pleasure
and diversion they feel in their prayer, I then clearly
discover how little they understand the way by
which they may arrive at union, because they
suppose all the business consists in this. No,
sisters, no ! our Lord desires works."

No dazzling adventures, no overwhelming
experience, deprived Teresa of balance in her
measurement of earthly affairs ; her sense of pro-
portion in human things, her sane outlook upon
life are unfailing. And this will appear the more
remarkable after we have endeavoured to tell
something of her ecstasies, her raptures and her
visions, and all the bewildering agonies and torment-
ing doubts that accompanied these experiences.

Teresa was forty, when her " conversion," already
alluded to, took place ; she is supposed to have
been about fifty-seven when she reached the con-
summation, the final synthesis, the Seventh Mansion
(1572). Of the activities of her exterior life during
those seventeen years we will tell in the following
chapter. We will here trace as far as may be her
spiritual path during that period.

The overwhelming consciousness of the divine
has come to mystics of all ages, sometimes with
sharp suddenness, sometimes after long agonies of
struggle and prayer. It has come in various ways
and various shapes. This consciousness so tran-
scends our humanity that often memory cannot

240 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

contain it, and even when remembered, language
is an instrument inadequate for its expression.
There are certain great passages in literature so
immediate that they have some faint glow of the
glory they would convey ; but no mystic has written
of these ineffable experiences with the same un-
impassioned lucidity as St Teresa. Raptures and
visions become frequent at this moment of her life.

Both in ecstasy and rapture, she tells us, the soul
is as it were drawn from the body. Rapture differs
from ecstasy both by its abruptness and its intensity.
The following description of rapture is taken from
the " Interior Castle " :

" The rapture takes place in such a manner that
the soul really seems to go out of the body, and yet,
on the other hand, it is evident that the person is
not dead — at least she cannot say whether for a few
moments the soul be in the body or not. It seems
to her that she has been altogether in another region
quite different from this world in which we live,
and then another light is shown to her, very different
from this here below ; and though she shall employ
all her life long in trying to form an idea of this and
other wonders, yet it would be impossible to under-
stand them. She is in an instant taught so many
things together, that should she spend many years
in arranging them in her thoughts and imagination,
she could not remember the one-thousandth part of
them."

Elsewhere she describes rapture as a flight in the
interior of the soul ; she compares the soul in

ST TERESA 241

rapture to " a small bird that has escaped from the
misery of the flesh and the prison-house of the
body." The Autobiography has a very beautiful
passage on this flight : " O my God, how clear
is the meaning of those words, and what good reason
the Psalmist had and all the world will ever have,
to pray for the wings of a dove ! It is plain that
this is the flight of the spirit rising upward above
all created things, chiefly above itself ; but it is a
sweet flight, a delicious flight, a flight without
noise."

Thus we see that according to Teresa's account,
the soul brings back after rapture, not only the
consciousness of another world and another light,
but also the memory of mental illumination, an
instant apprehension of all truth, so vast as to
leave little more than a dazzling sensation. The
passage in her works describing the light of vision
shows how extraordinary is her power of conveying
transcendental experience :

" It is a sight, the clearness and brightness of which
exceeds all that can possibly be imagined in this
world. It is not a splendour which dazzles, but a
sweet lustre ; nor does the light offend the eyes
whereby we see this object of such divine beauty.
It is a light so different from that of this world,
that even the brightness of the sun itself, which we
see, is dim in comparison with its brightness. It is
as if we beheld very clear water running upon crystal,
with the sun's rays reflected upon it and striking
Q

242 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

through it, in comparison with other very muddy
water seen in a cloudy day and running upon an
earthy bottom."

Teresa's classification of the various kinds of
vision need not detain us. She divides them into
visions seen with the eyes of the body, visions seen
with the eyes of the soul, and visions that are felt.
Most of the visions that she had were of the latter
kind ; she felt the presence of Jesus beside her ;
the sensation lasted for days, sometimes for a much
longer period. When this first happened, Teresa
was terrified, and went to her confessor in great
trouble. " He asked her how she knew it was our
Lord, since she saw nothing ? He also requested
her to inform him what kind of countenance He had.
She answered, that she knew not, because she did
not see any countenance, nor could she tell anything
but what she said, though she knew well it was He
who spoke to her, and not the effect of fancy."

And so we come to the doubts and the torments
that were to assail Teresa because of her mystical
experiences. There had been several recent
exposures in Spain of women who claimed super-
natural favours, either by fraud or by self-deception,
and these women had fallen into the hands of the
Inquisition. Teresa's confessors were convinced
that she was under a delusion, or ensnared by the
devil. They imposed penances beyond her strength ;
they bid her resist with insolence the divine favours ;
they increased her natural tendency towards doubt.

ST TERESA 243

" The devil," says poor Teresa, " has so many
subtleties that he may easily put on the appearance
of an angel of light." In her anguish of difficulty,
she consulted two old friends of hers, one of them
a priest. Although they were both " conspicuous
for virtue and prayer," they did not hesitate to
speak freely in the town of Teresa's private con-
versation with them, so that the revelations and
visions of this nun at the Incarnation soon became
the common talk of Avila. " They were not meant
for everyone," writes Teresa, " and it seemed that
I myself had published them." " Altogether,"
she adds, " people were so certain that I was under
the influence of the devil, that some wished me to
be exorcised. This, however, gave me very little
trouble ; but what I felt the most was, to see my
confessors afraid of hearing my confessions, or
when I came to know what tales were told to them
about me."

Thus Teresa stood alone, face to face with some
of the ultimate problems of the spiritual life. Were
her visions true visions or false visions ? Were they
to be encouraged or resisted ? How were they to
be tested ? What value did they possess ? It is
characteristic of Teresa that she should encounter
these questions squarely, think them through and
think them out ; examine searchingly every stage
of her spiritual growing.

She makes her investigation in a truly scientific
spirit. Her sound common-sense tells her that false
visions may be due to melancholy, or to health

244 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

weakened by penance or disease. They may be
the effect of imagination ; or the product of thought -
concentration. But, she argues, if visions result
in stimulating with a new vitality body, mind and
soul ; if they surpass all scope of imagination, all
power of thought, we cannot possibly attribute their
origin to our own limited faculties. " Like imperfect
sleep," she says, " which, instead of giving more
strength to the head, doth but leave it the more
exhausted, the mere operation of the imagination
is but to weaken the soul. Instead of nourishment
and energy she reaps only disgust ; whereas a
genuine heavenly vision yields to her a harvest of
ineffable spiritual riches, and an admirable renewal
of bodily strength." The true vision gives immedi-
ate apprehension of spiritual truth. " It was
granted me to perceive in one instant how all things
are seen and contained in God." The soul emerges
from ecstasy, " full of health and admirably dis-
posed for action." We might quote passage after
passage, page after page, of Teresa's glowing prose
to illustrate further the surpassing effects of her
spiritual experiences ; but it is enough if we have
made clear her one infallible test for true or false
visions — " By their fruits ye shall know them."
" If the favours and caresses come from our Lord
let her (the soul) carefully observe whether she feel
herself to be the better for them ; and if, from hear-
ing more loving expressions, she do not become
more humble and confounded, then let her be assured
it is not the Spirit of God."

ST TERESA 245

"Whether she feel herself to be the betterfor them."
Not, note, to be the wiser. She says : " People
imagine that to have 'revelations ' implies exceptional
holiness. It implies nothing of the kind. Holiness
can only be arrived at by acts of virtue and by
keeping the commandments."

It seems to us that Teresa has herself refuted that
school of thinkers who urge that her experiences
were merely hallucinations induced by states of body.
It must be frankly admitted that as a girl she was
subject to violent nervous pains and general paralysis.
For four days she lay as one dead, her grave prepared ;
she would have been buried, had not her father
insisted on delay. This is the " mystic death "
spoken of in certain Lives of the saint ; the suspension
of the bodily faculties and the birth of a new life.
Slowly, very slowly, with cruel anguish of body,
Teresa recovered. It was years before she gained the
entire use of her limbs, and during those years she
was constantly sick and subject to fainting fits. The
medical materialists therefore ascribe all her ecstasies,
raptures and visions to hysteria and neurasthenia.
It is, of course, true that " there is not a single one of
our states of mind, high or low, healthy or morbid,
that has not some organic process as its condition."
" But," says Professor William James, " to plead the
organic causation of a religious state of mind in
refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual
value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one
have already worked out in advance some psycho-
physical theory connecting spiritual values in general

246 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

with determinate sorts of physiological change.
Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not
even our scientific doctrines, not even our ^'s-beliefs,
could retain any value as revelations of the truth,
for every one of them without exception flows from
the state of their possessor's body at the time." It
is even possible that the neurotic temperament might
be more sensitive to vibrations from other planes ;
but in Teresa's case her whole life contradicts any
assertion that she was unbalanced. Her life was
disciplined and orderly ; she had a remarkable
capacity for affairs ; her writings have a force, vigour
and perspicacity, only to be achieved by one of
powerful intellect. Her bodily activities in middle
age and old age were excessive and arduous. She
was anything but morbid — she was laughter-loving
and cheerful. Cardinal Manning ascribes to her
" the broad common-sense, calm judgment and
balanced mind of a legislator or ruler." Further, she
investigated all the facts of her experience capable
of investigation with the most patient care. And
that is why — as we said at the beginning — there is
the temptation to regard her solely as " the psychol-
ogist among the saints." But to many this is the
least part of her greatness, a greatness that cannot be
measured by any human standard, for its height is
beyond even the imagination of many ardent souls.

Or rather its depth ; for the allegory that Teresa
employs to convey the final consummation of her
experience is a journey into the recesses of being.
Underneath our waking consciousness there are deeps

ST TERESA 247

below deeps, vast undiscovered realms of power and
bliss, undeveloped spiritual riches of indescribable
glory. This is the Interior Castle, the Castle of the
Soul, made of "diamonds of most clear crystal, in
which are many rooms, as in heaven there are
many mansions." The seven stages of spiritual
progress are symbolized by the seven rooms of the
Castle. In the innermost room of all dwells what
Teresa calls the " spirit of the soul," the divine spark,
the ultimate essence, that may achieve union with
the Godhead. Many there are who never care to
penetrate into the Castle ; its gates are Mental Prayer.
Teresa treats of the Seven Mansions in full detail,
arming and warning the aspirant, telling him how
he shall open door after door by overcoming sin and
practising prayer. As he travels deeper into the
Castle, ever approaching closer to Reality, new facul-
ties, undreamed of, unguessed at, unfold ; conscious-
ness expands ; the stages of ecstasy and rapture are
passed ; and in the final attainment he enters the
Seventh Mansion, and Creator and creature are one.
It is in the Seventh Mansion that the Spiritual
Marriage takes place of which we have already
spoken in connexion with Catherine of Siena.
Teresa thus describes this surpassing experience :
" All that I can speak of it," she says, " is that our
Lord made known in one moment to the soul what is
the glory of Heaven, in a manner far more sublime
than can be expressed by any vision, or any other
spiritual favour. If I may so express myself, that
which may be called the spirit of the soul becomes one

248 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

truly with God. . . . Perhaps by these words :
He who is united to God is one spirit with him, St Paul
intended to describe that mystical marriage which
unites the soul inseparably with God. . . . The soul
which has attained to this state never departs from
that centre, where she is at rest with God ; neither
is her peace ever disturbed, for she receives it from
Him who gave it to the apostles when they were
gathered together in His name."

Thus in the attainment of the Seventh Mansion,
of the Spiritual Marriage, life has come full circle ;
it is complete ; accepted in its entirety. The whole
being has achieved synthesis, works in harmony,
reposes in full certitude of the Eternal Love and
Wisdom.

In Monsieur Henri Delacroix's admirable " Etude
d'histoire et de psychologic du Mysticisme," he treats
with illumination the difficult question of Trans-
cendence and Immanence in connexion with Teresa's
attainment of the Seventh Mansion. Speaking of
God, he says : " Sa presence de rare est de venue
continue ; sa transcendence que 1'extase faisait
parfois immanente et que la peine extatique montrait
transcendente dans I'immanence me*me, est de venue
immanence ; il a pris possession de tous les e"tats
de 1'ame, et toute la pr6cision de la vie exterieure
semble jaillir de 1'impre'cision du Dieu interieur."

Yet the outcome of the final consummation is, for
Teresa, not passivity, not absorption, but activity.
" In the design of God," she says, " this Spiritual
Marriage is destined to no other purpose but the

ST TERESA 249

incessant production of work, work." It is time,
therefore, to leave these transcendental regions and
return once more to common earth ; time to exchange
the light of vision for the light of day ; time to follow
Teresa, no longer amid the gleaming intricacies of the
Interior Castle, but along the rutted roads of old
Spain.

The Reform

Teresa looked out on her immediate surroundings
and it seemed to her that they were bad. The nuns
had vowed themselves to prayer and to God ; but on
all sides the exterior world, with its distractions, its
temptations, its dangers, was breaking through upon
the cloister. She looked farther afield and she saw
great masses of people, great nations, forswearing
their allegiance to the Church, and, as she believed,
rushing headlong to hell. To her there appeared to
be one sovereign remedy for both evils : the reform
of the Religious Orders. The Religious Orders were
God's regular soldiers. It was small wonder that the
enemy should triumph if God's army were lax in
discipline, indifferent, demoralized, the sentinels
asleep at their posts. She realized to the full the
justice of the taunts levelled against monastic life —
no one had been more frank than herself in recog-
nizing its present scandals. She believed that by
purifying the cloister a great spiritual bulwark
might be erected that would establish the Church's
position against all opponents. The reproach of evil
living and evil example within the fold would be

250 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

removed ; an undivided front, strong in the trust of
God, would be presented to the world, and the tide
of heresy stemmed. Ignatius Loyola, and St Peter
of Alcantara, reformer of the Franciscan Order,
held a like opinion. They felt with Teresa that the
supreme need of the Church at that moment was a
band of devoted men and women, willing to sacrifice
all in her service.

Nevertheless, the actual suggestion of a reform
came to Teresa almost by accident. It was in 1560,
when she was forty-five years old. One evening
there were gathered in her cell a few intimate
friends and relatives ; all were, of course, nuns of the
Incarnation, and all had experienced the difficulty
of leading the religious life in that easy-going, over-
crowded convent. One of Teresa's young nieces
exclaimed with sudden earnestness : " Well, let us
who are here betake us to a different and more
solitary way of life — like hermits." She promised
further to give a thousand ducats of her own
property towards the foundation of a small house of
stricter rule, so that the idea became immediately
practicable.

It was only a random suggestion, but it struck
deep. The more Teresa brooded over the thought
the more she felt it to have been divinely inspired.
She considered ways and means. It seemed to her
that God would be best served by a small community
consisting only of twelve nuns and a prioress, who
should return to the primitive rule of the Carmelite
Order. She anticipated opposition to the scheme from

ST. TERESA
From the contemporary portrait by J-'ra yuan tie la Miseria at Seville

ST TERESA 251

her own Prioress at the Incarnation, and made her
plans with extreme caution. The Provincial of the
order gave her permission for the new foundation.
A lady of Avila, a widow, in whom Teresa found an
enthusiastic ally, bought a little house in a good part
of the town, as if for herself. This was destined for
the new convent of St Joseph, for whom Teresa had
a special devotion.

But though Teresa had anticipated difficulties,
she was unprepared for the extremes of hostility
aroused by the project when it became known. The
nuns of the Incarnation were indignant at the implied
aspersion on their way of life. The townsfolk
laughed at the idea as ridiculous. " There instantly
arose such a violent persecution as cannot be de-
scribed in words," says Teresa, " the scoffs, the jeers,
the laughter, the exclamations that it was a difficult
and silly undertaking were more than I can describe."
So great was the tumult that the Provincial actually
withdrew the permission he had given to found the
new convent.

Opposition always had the effect of stimulating
Teresa to pursue with more undaunted courage the
course she had in view. It rallied her energies ;
it increased her activity. " I am filled with desires
to serve God so impetuous," she writes, " and am
so full of trouble at finding myself so useless to His
glory, that I can give no idea of their intensity."
She enlisted the Dominicans on her behalf, and they
promised to obtain for her a brief from Rome.
They suggested further, in order to overcome the

252 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

difficulty with her own Provincial, that the convent
should be placed under the control of the Bishop of
Avila.

It was Teresa's urgent ambition not to endow her
convent but to found in poverty. This, she learned
afterwards, was the practice of the primitive Car-
melites, but it was one of the points on which she en-
countered most bitter opposition. We have already
seen how loth the popes were, even in the thirteenth
century, to grant to Clare the privilege of poverty ;
three centuries later they were still more hostile to
unendowed foundations. On this point Teresa con-
sulted St Peter of Alcantara. He passes before our
eyes vividly in Teresa's pages, a hundred and one years
old, his body gnarled by incredible asceticism. " He
seemed made of roots of trees more than anything
else," writes Teresa ; and she adds : " With all his
sanctity he was very kind." He had previously
approved her methods of prayer which she had sub-
mitted to him, and now he approved her intention
of founding in poverty. The house was prepared ;
the brief from Rome obtained ; the Bishop of Avila
accepted the foundation ; in 1562 four novices with
Teresa took the vows ; and the convent of St Joseph,
the first house of the Reformed Rule, was in being.

Scarcely had the incense melted into air than
Teresa fell a prey to paroxysms of doubt. She ques-
tioned as to whether she had been wise to disobey
her Provincial ; she was exercised as to whether the
Rule were not too rigid for human following. The
turn of events did little to quiet her perplexities,

ST TERESA 253

for on the very day of the foundation she was com-
manded by her immediate superior to return to the
Incarnation. She obeyed, leaving her four novices
without a mother. And next the Governor of Avila
went in person to St Joseph's, and commanded the
novices to depart immediately, threatening to break
down the doors and drag them out by main force if
they disobeyed. The novices, with splendid courage,
replied that their superior was the Bishop and not the
Governor, and refused to stir. The Governor dared
not fulfil his threats, but he raised the full powers
of the town, municipal and ecclesiastic, against the
little community of nuns. A most imposing council
was summoned, consisting of the Governor and
council of the city, the municipality and represen-
tatives of the people, the cathedral chapter, bishops,
vicar-general, and delegates from each of the religious
orders. Certainly it was a formidable phalanx of
power and talent to oppose to these four women.
The Governor pointed out that the town was already
thickly studded with convents and monasteries ;
to found another was to impose a tax on the people,
to take money from the pockets of the citizens and
food from their mouths. " It is impossible to allow
a few poor servants of God to die of hunger," he said
magniloquently, " and we shall have to deprive our
children of bread . ' ' But the part of his speech that in-
terests us most bears reference to Teresa's visions. His
attitude is delightfully typical of the conservative
potentate all the world over. ..." They say that
this nun has revelations, and a very strange spirit.

254 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

This of itself makes one fear, and should make the
least cautious ponder ; for in these times we have
seen women's deceptions and illusions, and at all
times it has been dangerous to applaud the novelties
to which they were inclined." To add to the diffi-
culties of St Joseph's Convent, Teresa had infringed
the civil law by founding without obtaining per-
mission from the civil authorities, and without re-
ceiving the sanction of the older foundations. She
was now threatened with an expensive lawsuit with
the municipality, and was virtually a prisoner in the
Convent of the Incarnation.

During these months of enforced inaction and deep
anxiety, amid the occupations of the house, the
kitchen and the spinning-wheel, Teresa began the
first narrative of her life, 1562.

It was two years before the city finally abandoned
its opposition ; but after six months Teresa was
allowed to return to St Joseph's.

The five years that she spent there, were, she tells
us, the most quiet years of her life — " the tranquillity
and calmness of that happy time my soul has often
since longed for." The house was small, with a small
but neat chapel ; there was neither a common
workroom nor a common dormitory. Little hermi-
tages were erected in the garden for meditation. The
day was portioned out between work and prayer.
The nuns rose at six ; until eight in summer and nine
in winter they were occupied in prayer and repeating
the offices. As to the hour of the meal, it was left
unsettled, as it depended on whether there was any-

ST TERESA 255

thing to eat. The food of the nuns, if they were not
reduced to dry bread only, consisted of a little coarse
fish or bread and cheese. During the time of recrea-
tion which followed they might converse with each
other as they pleased ; then the convent was buried
in silence while some slept and some prayed. On the
stroke of two, Vespers were said, and were succeeded
by an hour's reading. Compline was at six in
summer and five in winter, and at eight the bell rang
for silence unbroken till after Prime on the following
day. Matins were said about nine ; and at eleven
the nuns went to bed. The nuns' habits were of black
serge with a cape and scapulary of white woollen
serge ; the coifs were of coarse flax cloth, the tunics
of woollen serge ; on their feet the nuns wore hemp-
soled sandals.

The Rule was a strict one, but, as we shall see,
not nearly so strict as that imposed by the Mere
Angelique. Teresa's transcendent experiences had
brought her a large humanity, a deep measure of
sympathy ; her whole nature was radiant and vital,
and the unnecessary austerities, the fierce self-
repression practised at Port-Royal would not, we
think, have met with Teresa's approval.

Teresa was never weary of reminding her nuns
that " God walks even among the pots and pipkins."
She says : " The true proficiency of the soul con-
sists, not in much thinking, but in much loving.
And if you ask me how this love must be acquired,
I answer : by resolving to do the divine will, and
to suffer for God, and by so doing and so suffering,

256 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

when occasion for action and for suffering arise. . . .
Courage, then, my daughters, let there be no sadness !
When obedience calls you to exterior employments
(as for example into the kitchen amidst the pots and
dishes) remember that our Lord goes along with you,
to help you both in your interior and exterior duties."

The quiet of Teresa's life at St Joseph's was
broken in upon by a command from the Father-
General of her order to found other houses of the
primitive Rule. In the fifteen years that remained
to her, she founded thirty monasteries for women
and two for men. In order to accomplish her end,
she had to take long journeys over Spain, to
encounter the dangers of the road, of floods, of
broken bridges, to submit to the discomfort of inns,
to be the object of opposition and persecution, and
to be threatened with processes and lawsuits. She
had, moreover, to learn something of the laws of
inheritance and finance, of the fluctuations of the
property-market ; she had to be a keen judge of men
and to acquire a sharp insight into affairs ; she had
to fight local jealousies and rival jurisdictions.
" Since our Lord has employed me in the foundation
of these houses," she writes to her brother, " I have
become such a woman of business that I know a
little of everything."

She used to travel in a covered cart without
springs ; six nuns usually accompanied her, and
also a priest. During the journey the nuns followed
exactly the exercises of the community ; a little
bell marked the beginning and the end of each.

ST TERESA 257

Silence was kept at the appointed hour. It may
well be imagined that this mode of progress was not
always agreeable. " I assure you, sisters," writes
Teresa, " that as the sun fell upon the carts, to enter
them was like being in purgatory."

The thrilling adventures that befell her on these
travels, the separate obstacles she encountered and
overcame, the variety of characters she had to deal
with and of experience she had to acquire — all this
may be read in her own " Book of Foundations."
Her spirit was indomitable, her will unconquerable.
To give some idea of the kind of difficulties that met
her, let us quote from her own account of her second
foundation — made at Medina del Campo, 1567.
" We arrived at Medina on the Eve of the Assump-
tion about midnight," she writes, " and, to avoid
all disturbance, we alighted at the monastery of St
Anne, and thence went on foot to our house. It was
a great mercy of God, that at such an hour we met
no one, though it was the time when the bulls were
brought into Medina for a bull-fight on the following
day. Having come to the house, we entered into a
court, the walls of which seemed much decayed, as
I saw more plainly afterwards when it was daylight.
It seems to me that our Lord was pleased this good
father (Father Antony) should be so blind as not to
perceive there was no proper place there for the
Blessed Sacrament. When I saw the hall, I per-
ceived there was much rubbish to be removed, and
that the walls were not plastered : the night was
far advanced and we had only brought a few hang-

258

ings (three, I think) which were nothing for the
whole length of the hall. ..." They were, how-
ever, able to procure from a lady several pieces of
tapestry and a piece of blue damask. " We knew
not what to do for nails, and that was not the time
to buy them. We began, however, to search for
some on the walls, and at length with difficulty we
procured abundance ; and then some of the men
began putting up the tapestry while we swept the
floor ; and we made such great haste that by break
of day the altar was ready, a bell was put up, and
immediately Mass was said. This was sufficient
for taking possession ; but we did not rest contented
till we had the most Blessed Sacrament placed in
the tabernacle. . . . When Mass was over, I chanced
to look out into the court from a window, and saw
all the wall in many places quite in ruins, to repair
which would require the work of many days."

To work all night after a long journey, and find
yourself by daylight in a ruin was one of the least
of the trials Teresa had to encounter. Sometimes
she founded in poverty, and she and her nuns
suffered from hunger and intense cold and were
devoid of the barest necessities of life ; sometimes
she founded with endowments, and could not
obtain the moneys left under wills, or given as
dowries to her novices. We have here only space
to speak in detail of one more of her foundations,
the one that included her most famous disciple,
whose mystical works rival hers in the estimation
of the world — the foundation at Durvelo, where the

ST TERESA 259

Primitive Rule was practised by Father Antony of
Jesus and St John of the Cross.

At first Teresa could not find any friars anxious
to join the Reform. " Here was a poor barefooted
nun, without anyone to help her but our Lord,"
she writes, " furnished with plenty of letters patent
and good desires, without any possibility of putting
them in execution." When she was at Medina she
spoke on this subject to Father Antony, Superior
of the Convent of St Anne, whom she had known
when he was Prior of the Carmes at Avila. Father
Antony was then sixty years old, a man of handsome
and commanding presence and noble stature, some-
what delicate in health. To Teresa's amazement,
indeed to her dismay, he offered himself as the first
friar to profess her Primitive Rule. Teresa could
not at first believe him in earnest ; when he per-
sisted, she felt that this man, no longer young,
accustomed to command, was not the right person
to start so rigorous an undertaking. Her scruples
were only too well founded ; but Antony's enthusi-
asm overbore her judgment. Her next volunteer
was John of the Cross, whose insignificant appear-
ance led her to speak in loving satire of these two
brothers as " her friar and a half."

A young gentleman of Avila offered for the use of
the friars of the Reform a house he possessed in a
little village called Durvelo. This poverty-stricken
place consisted of some twenty cottages, and Teresa
gives a vivid picture of her first impression of the
house. " We arrived there a little before night,

260 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

and when we entered the house it was in such a state
that we dared not remain there during the night,
because the place was so exceedingly dirty and there
were also many reapers about. It had a tolerable
hall, one chamber, with a garret and a little kitchen ;
this building was all that was to compose our con-
vent." Partly — we cannot help feeling — with a
view to dissuading Father Antony from his purpose,
she wrote to him describing the house as little better
than a barn for storing grain, dwelling without
extenuation on its mud-walls and miserable sur-
roundings. " God had inspired him with more
valour than he had me, and so he answered that not
only there would he dwell, but even in a pigsty.
Brother John of the Cross was of the same mind."

At Valladolid Teresa instructed John in the Rule
of life she had set before herself and her daughters,
and in 1568 John assumed the habit of the Primitive
Order and took up his abode at Durvelo. For two
months he remained there in absolute solitude ;
then he was joined by Father Antony, who renounced
his office of Superior, and embraced the Reform.
Teresa visited her disciples, and describes how John
had adorned the walls with skulls and had made
wooden crosses out of the branches of trees ; she
tells of the little cold, uncomfortable hermitages that
the friars had constructed on either side of the church,
and of the extreme penances they practised. She
showed herself here, as always, keenly alive to the
dangers of excessive asceticism, and took every step
in her power to abate the unwise zeal of her early

ST TERESA 261

disciples. As the community increased, she bade
her friars wear sandals ; " as to the point on which
I strongly insisted with our father, it was that he
should see they were not stinted of food. . . . The
other thing that I besought him greatly is that he
would appoint the work, even if it were only making
baskets, or whatever else, and that during the hour
of recreation when there is no other time ; for it is
a matter of extreme importance, where there is no
study ; know, my father, that I am in favour of
exacting much in the way of virtue, but not in
rigour, as you will see by these our houses."

But St John was one of those ardent souls to
whom moderation is impossible. The walls of
Durvelo still stand ; by a rough ladder we may still
reach the loft where John penetrated into the
profundities of mysticism. The writings he has
left are very different to those of St Teresa ; his has
been the more sombre and the more terrible ex-
perience, and he has spoken with an understanding
equalled by no other writer of that stage of mysticism
which is known as the Dark Night of the Soul- — the
moment when, after deep bliss, the soul feels itself
abandoned of God ; the moment identified by some
with Christ's cry on the cross : " My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me ? " More definitely
than St Teresa he takes what is called the negative
path : " We arrive at God only by the negation
of what is not God." On the way to purification
there are two experiences to pass through which
involve cruel suffering. The Night of the Senses is

262 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the first, when the lower desires are killed out ; the
Night of the Soul is the second, when the soul is
thrown back upon itself in its nakedness, and
deprived of all comfort and joy, so that it may
learn to stand alone.

But if the mystic path was dark to St John of
the Cross, no one has revealed with more perfect
restraint and loveliness the bliss of the journey's
ending. We venture to quote part of Arthur
Symons' beautiful translation of St John's poem :

",Upon an obscure night,
Fevered with love in love's anxiety,
(O hapless-happy plight !)
I went, none seeing me,
Forth from my house where all things quiet be ...

Blest night of wandering

In secret, when by none might I be spied,

Nor I see anything ;

Without a light or guidej

Save that which in my heart burnt in my side.

That light did lead me on

More surely than the shining of noontide,

Where well I knew that One

Did for my coming bide ;

Where he abode might none but he abide:

O night that didst lead thusj

O night more lovely than the dawn of light,

O night that broughtest us

Lover to lover's sight,

Lover with loved, in marriage of delight 1 . . . '-'

When St John was seized by the Inquisition he
destroyed the letters that had passed between him-

ST TERESA 263

self and St Teresa — letters which would, no doubt,
have thrown light upon many profundities. But
before his incarceration, John was for four years
confessor to the nuns of the Incarnation, called
to this post by Teresa, who from 1571 to 1574
was Prioress of this convent. Her installation is
perhaps one of the most dramatic episodes in her
career.

The Convent of the Incarnation had fallen upon
evil days. Its finances had been badly managed,
and the nuns often lacked food. It was seriously
proposed to send the sisters back to their families
and to dissolve the community. In this dilemma
the Visitor of the convent bethought him of Teresa's
extraordinary practical abilities. If anyone could
bring the affairs of the house into order, it would
be this woman of experience and business capacity.
So, with the consent of the superiors of the order,
the Visitor nominated Teresa Prioress. The nuns
were justly incensed — justly, because it was their
right to elect a prioress, and their choice would
never have fallen upon Teresa. Many of them had
not forgiven her for the slur they deemed she had
cast upon their way of life by founding houses of
stricter rule ; many feared that she would impose
upon the Incarnation rigours and severities such
as they had never undertaken to bear.

In 1571 the Father Provincial read before the
nuns assembled in chapter Teresa's patent of election.
An indescribable uproar followed. One nun cried
out : " We love her, we choose her ! " and, raising

264 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the processional cross, went forth to meet the new
Prioress. The vast majority of nuns resisted the
entrance of Teresa, and the Father Provincial had
to drag her by main force within the enclosure.
Teresa's few supporters began to chant the Te
Deum, but angry shouts and imprecations overbore
the sound of their singing.

No incident in Teresa's career shows more clearly
her marvellous skill in dealing with a difficult,
almost an impossible, situation, her exquisite tact,
and, above all, her knowledge of human nature.
When the nuns entered the chapter-room for Teresa's
first chapter, they found in the place of the Prioress
a statue of the Virgin, holding in her hands the key
of the convent. Teresa sat on a low stool at the
foot of the statue. Here is a summary of her
address :

" My ladies, mothers and sisters, by the obedience
which I owe to my superiors, our Lord has been
pleased to send me back to this house to exercise
the office of Prioress. ... I was grieved at my
election, because a charge was thus given to me, the
duties of which I am unequal to fulfil ; and also
because you have been deprived of the right of
election which belongs to you, so that a Prioress
has been imposed upon you against your will and
pleasure — a Prioress, too, who would think she had
done great things could she only learn from the
least amongst you the virtues which are practised
in this house. I come to serve and please you in
every way. . . . You must then, my dear mothers

ST TERESA 265

and sisters, let me know what I can do for each of
you, for I shall be most willing to do what you ask,
even were it to shed my blood for you. I am a
daughter of this house, and your sister. I know
the disposition and wants of all the Religious here,
or at least of the greater part of them. You have
no reason, then, to fear being under the govern-
ment of one who is wholly yours by so many
titles. . . ."

Teresa won all hearts at once, and so completely,
that at the next election of a prioress fifty-five
nuns actually underwent excommunication for cast-
ing their votes in her favour.

But before we examine the reasons why the
superiors who forced Teresa upon the Incarnation,
should, at the next election, excommunicate those
who supported her claims, we will touch for a
moment on the scene in which Teresa experienced,
perhaps, her greatest popular triumph. The
foundation at Seville took place in 1575, and we
quote Mrs Cunningham Graham's picturesque ac-
count of the proceedings :

" From every narrow casement, so dark and
mysterious with its stern gratings of twisted iron,
hung gorgeous velvets and silks. Down below
passed the great Archbishop bearing the Host,
under the pall of cloth of gold and silver borne by
cathedral dignitaries, sweeping from light into
shadow ; followed by pursy canons, their shoulders
bending under the weight of broidered copes stiff

266 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

with Gothic embroidery. Then came brotherhoods
and confraternities in their diverse coloured robes
and insignia ; choir-boys and acolytes, scarlet robes
and lace stoles dazzling in the sun ; torches gleamed,
censers swung, minstrels filled the air with
triumphant music, banners waved." Mrs Cunning-
ham Graham then describes, " that most moving
scene of all, when the saint, in the rear of the pro-
cession, throwing herself down on her knees before
the Archbishop, implored his blessing, and he, never
surely greater than in that moment, fell on his
knees likewise, humbly imploring hers."

Yet in that very year (1575) the opposition to
Teresa's Reform began to make itself felt.

St Joseph's of Avila was founded in 1562 — from
1567 to 1575 Teresa's foundations were continual, and
conspicuous throughout the country for the purity
and sanctity of the life they fostered. All the nobler
souls in the Carmelite communities following the
Mitigated Rule, the men and women of highest
aspiration and sincerest aim, began to be attracted
out of their houses to join the Primitive Rule. At
first the defection was imperceptible ; but as the
foundations multiplied the Carmelites suddenly
realized that the best of their sons and daughters
were deserting the old order. In the houses of the
Mitigated Rule, resentment against the reform turned
to violent opposition, and finally to active persecu-
tion.

We have already described the scene when Teresa

ST TERESA 267

was elected Prioress of the Incarnation. We must
tell what happened when the time for the next
election came round. We will give Teresa's own
words. The Prior of the Mitigated Carmes came to
preside at the election of the Prioress : "He threatened
the Religious who should give me their votes with
excommunication," Teresa writes. " Nevertheless,
undismayed by his threats, fifty-five Religious voted
for me as if he had never said a word. As the
Provincial received each separate suffrage, he poured
forth his malediction on the Religious who presented
it, and declaring her excommunicated, he struck the
paper with his fist, tore it, and threw it into the fire.
The nuns have been excommunicated now for nearly
a fortnight ; they cannot hear Mass, nor enter the
choir during office, nor speak to anyone, even their
confessor or relations." The Prioress elected by
the remaining forty-four nuns was, in deference to
Teresa's advice, finally accepted by the whole
community.

St John of the Cross, confessor of the Incarnation,
was violently seized and thrown into prison. But
the persecution was not confined to the Convent of
the Incarnation ; the Vicar-General of the Carmelite
Order ordered the submission of all the members
of the Reform, to the Superiors of the Mitigated
Rule. Further, the nuns of the Reform were de-
nounced to the Inquisition ; Teresa herself was
bidden to choose some convent as a retreat, and
never to quit it on any pretext whatsoever. The
Papal Nuncio, writing in 1578, speaks of Teresa

268 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

as " that restless, roving, contumacious female, who
under the cover of devotion invents evil doctrine ;
leaving the retirement of the cloister to gad about
against the orders of the council of Trent and her
superiors ; teaching as if she were a master, against
the teachings of St Paul, who ordered that women
should not teach."

Although the austere Philip II. favoured the
Reform, the Pope, the Vicar-General, and the great
Order of Carmelites were ranged against it. Teresa
alone — so great was her wisdom and knowledge —
could possibly have met even this powerful combina-
tion, but her allies within the Primitive Rule were a
source rather of weakness than of strength. The
three chief fathers of the Reform were curiously
lacking in the gifts of diplomacy and government.
Father Gratian was weak ; Father Mariano harsh ;
Father Antony, her first friar, obstinate. They
committed a very grave tactical error when they
insisted on holding a chapter in order to erect them-
selves into a separate Province. Teresa did all she
could to prevent this step ; yet even when discussing
matters of such gravity, her buoyant spirit enabled
her to adopt a bantering tone with her friars. To
Father Gratian she writes : " My father and superior,
as you say — I cannot help laughing whenever I think
of your letter, at the serious way in which you remind
me that I am not to judge my superior. Oh, my dear
father, you have little occasion to swear like a saint,
far less like a waggoner, for I am perfectly convinced
of this." But in spite of her efforts, the fathers held

ST TERESA 269

the chapter, elected Father Antony Provincial, and
so called down upon their heads the wrath of the
Papal Nuncio, who annulled the acts of the chapter,
excommunicated Antony, Gratian and Mariano,
and imprisoned them in three separate monasteries
at Madrid.

Teresa, however, lived to see her Reform established
on what appeared a sound basis. Her friars had tried
to snatch illegitimately at independence ; she secured
the recognition of her foundation as a separate Order
by a brief from Rome in 1580. Henceforward, con-
vents of the Reformed Rule were an entirely separate
organization from convents of the Mitigated Rule,
having their own Provincial, and managing, without
interference, their own internal affairs.

Teresa died at Alva in 1582 ; but even during her
lifetime the Reform had passed through its first brief
glory, and was beginning to show signs of decay.
St Joseph's of Avila, her first foundation, where she
had passed the five happiest years of her life, soon
fell away from its ideals of perfection. It became
involved in money troubles ; the nuns petitioned to
eat meat, and asked to be allowed to keep something
to eat in their cells. We cannot know how bitter this
backsliding was to the soul of Teresa. Some say that
her humour, her sanity, her knowledge of human
nature, helped her to preserve that tranquillity which
was a striking feature of her life : others say that she
drew her strength from an unquenchable fountain.

It has been our endeavour in this chapter merely
to indicate the vast scope of her activities — activities

270 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

which embraced the smallest details of life. Nothing
is too minute, too trivial for the attention of this
"undaunted daughter of desires." To Lorenzo, her
brother, she writes : " I send you some quinces, so
that your housekeeper may make them into conserves
for you, to eat after meals, and a box of marmalade,
and another for the Sub-Prioress of St Joseph's, who,
they tell me, is very thin. Tell her she is to eat it."
In order to express Teresa in a phrase, we have
to go to one of her own " large books of day." In
the Interior Castle, when the soul has passed beyond
Ecstasy, beyond Rapture, when it has entered the
Seventh Mansion and reached the final consummation,
Teresa writes : "To give to our Lord a perfect
hospitality, Mary and Martha must combine." This
is the summary of Teresa's life.

THE MERE ANGELIQUE

The Shell of Dogma

WE have a curious story to unfold in the follow-
ing pages, a story of unflinching heroism, a
story of tragedy, a story possessing many unique
features, bristling with contradictions. The core
of our subject is the convent of Port-Royal and its
reform by its heroic abbess, the Mdre Angelique.
But the Mere Angelique was more than a great
reformer ; her convent acted, to men as well as to
women, as a magnet of religious life, and outside
the house of peace and prayer a band of solitaries
built themselves dwellings — men of position, renown,
intellect, who, bound by no vows and attached to
no order, chose to live a strict life of asceticism and
study.

Our innermost kernel is thus the cloister ; it is
encircled by a community of recluses, and these
are driven by unforeseen circumstances to erect round
Port-Royal a hard outer shell of doctrine. This
doctrine is known as Jansenism, and claims as its
basis the writings of St Augustine.

In these chapters we have to deal with a side of

Christian teaching differing from any so far touched

upon in these pages. Catherine of Siena has laid her

chief stress upon Love ; Juliana of Norwich upon Joy ;

271

272 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Teresa upon Prayer ; Clare upon Poverty. The Port-
Royalists dwell upon the more terrible aspect of the
Deity : His Power, His right to make or mar as He
chooses. Man is fallen and lost ; all his unaided
efforts are unavailing ; by the Grace of God alone
may he find salvation. It is an iron creed, demanding
the extreme of self-renunciation and penance ; a
creed that often tends to obscure the Love and Mercy
of God and to extinguish hope. The Port-Royal
nuns under the Mere Angelique lived out this creed
with heart whole devotion, and the Port-Royal re-
cluses defended it with an array of sounding logic,
of caustic wit, of dogged persistence, that made the
recurring question of Grace as vital in the seventeenth
century as it had ever been throughout the ages.

This ancient controversy concerning Grace — so acrid
a controversy that several papal bulls had forbidden
its discussion — was finally to bring about the ruin of
Port-Royal ; but for a long time the nuns remained
immune to the theological disputes that centred
about their way of life. The round of recollection,
of penance and prayer went on without interruption,
while there beat up against the very convent walls
a tide of fierce battle. Before approaching the citadel,
however, it seems to us well to describe the outworks,
to indicate as briefly as possible the dogmas held
by the Port-Royal recluses, and to show how these
dogmas incited the enmity of the Jesuits, and pro-
cured the condemnation of the Holy See.

Our prologue opens with two young men, playing,
with admirable skill, battledore and shuttlecock.

THE MERE ANG&LIQUE ' 273

The emphasis is laid upon the game, because, for
five years, it was the only relaxation, practically
the only exercise, that these students allowed them-
selves. One is a Frenchman, and one a Fleming.
In the Fleming, thin, bony-visaged, aquiline-nosed,
with keen glance and fierce moustache, we recognize
Jansen ; his friend and host, insignificant in appear-
ance, with crumpled features, is known in history
by the rank he afterwards attained as Abbot of
Saint-Cyran. After the M£re Angelique, he is the
dominating figure in the story of Port-Royal.

These two young men had been fellow-students in
Paris ; but in Paris, theology was based upon the
writings of the schoolmen. Jansen and Saint-Cyran
believed that the schoolmen had obscured the pure
doctrine of the Church fathers, and they determined
to make a systematic study of these earlier sources,
particularly of St Augustine. Saint-Cyran asked
Jansen to come and stay with him at his house near
Bayonne, and for five years, from 1611 to 1616, these
students pursued their researches with unremitting
zeal. Jansen hardly ever left the arm-chair in which
he studied, and where he would sometimes snatch
a few hours' fitful sleep. "You will kill this poor
Fleming with hard work," Saint-Cyran's mother used
to say.

Jansen's study of St Augustine, passionate, intense,
devoted, was pursued throughout a lifetime with
untiring enthusiasm. He read the complete works
of the Father ten times ; those relating to the Pelagian
controversy thirty times. Pelagius was the great

274 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

upholder of the doctrine of Free Will ; his heresy lay in
denying, at least partially, the necessity for Grace.
St Augustine, in refuting this heresy, had made him-
self the chief exponent of the efficacy of Grace ; and
consequently of Election and Predestination. But his
teachings had at various times been so mitigated and
softened by popes and councils that, according to
existing standards, Jansen found they actually
savoured of heresy ! He conveyed this extraordinary
situation to Saint-Cyran in the following words : —
" There is not a single person to whom I can venture
to say what I think (and my judgment is formed in
accordance with the principles established by Saint
Augustine) of the opinions held at the present time
on most points, and especially on Grace and Pre-
destination, for I am afraid lest at Rome they should
treat me as they have done others." As a matter of
fact, the doctrines found by Jansen in St Augustine
bore strong resemblance to those held by the Calvin-
ists on the question of Election and Predestination.
And the Jansenists were actually accused of Calvin-
ism ; they have been called by Isaac d' Israeli " the
Methodists of France." But these statements have
no foundation : the Jansenists held the strict Roman
Catholic view of the Eucharist and of the Sacrament
of Penance, and they believed that salvation was only
to be found within the Roman fold. They went
indeed further than the practice of the Church in
their doctrine of penance, and maintained that absolu-
tion should not be granted unless there was an inward
change amounting almost to conversion. This was

THE ABBE DE SAINT-CYRAN

igraving after the portrait by Philippe -ie Champagne

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 275

expounded by the great Arnauld in his book, " De la
Frequente Communion " (1643) — a. book that brought
upon him the enmity of the Jesuits, for this com-
munity sought to win sinners without putting too
great demands upon the frailty of human nature, and
they maintained that Arnauld strove to make the
communion-table inaccessible, and to deny to the
faithful the Bread of Life. In consequence of this
book, there were said to be three thousand fewer
communicants at the Church of St Sulpice at Easter-
time. But this is to anticipate ; Jansen himself lived
and died within the Church of Rome ; from 1635
to 1638 he was Bishop of Ypres. His monumental
Latin work, the " Augustinus," was not published
till 1640, two years after his death.

Few books have been the centre of fiercer re-
ligious controversy, and yet nothing could have
appeared more orthodox in design. The work
consists of a series of texts of St Augustine, arranged
so as to form a complete system. Jansen treats in
full detail the condition of man prior to the Fall.
He deals with the heresy of Pelagius, of his disciples
and of the Semi-Pelagians ; he discusses all the
different kinds of Grace. He cites chapter and verse
to prove that the doctrines he expounds emanate
from St Augustine. The book is the result of an acute
intellect and unsparing work. Saint-Cyran said that
after St Paul and St Augustine, no one had spoken
as divinely as Jansen on the subject of Grace.

It was not possible for the Holy See to condemn,
as a whole, this book, claiming to derive its authority

276 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

from St Augustine ; so the ingenious device was
resorted to of extracting from it five propositions as
heretical. These were condemned by a bull of Pope
Innocent X. (1653). The first of these, and the most
important, was said to be blasphemous as well as
heretical. It ran as follows : —

" Some commandments of God are impossible for
the just to obey, however much they desire it, and
whatever efforts they make, because their strength
is not sufficient ; and they lack that Grace which
alone would make obedience possible."

The Church denied that the doctrines of Jansen were
to be found in St Augustine ; the Jansenists denied
that the propositions condemned by papal bull were
to be found in the " Augustinus." Louis XIV. asked
his favourite, the Count de Grammont, to read
Jansen 's book and see if he could discover the cele-
brated propositions. To the delight of the French
Court, the Count stated that if the propositions
were there, they were there incognito. Pascal, in his
"Lettres Provinciates," engages in this question with
dainty and mordant irony.

" MONSIEUR, — Nous e"tions bien abuse's. Je ne
suis de"trompe que d'hier ; jusque-la, j'ai pense" que le
sujet des disputes de Sorbonne etoit bien important
et d'une extreme consequence pour la religion. . . .
On examine deux questions ; Tune de fait, 1'autre de
droit.

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 277

" Celle de fait consiste a savoir si Monsieur Arnauld
est te'meraire pour avoir dit dans sa seconde lettre,
' Qu'il a lu exactement le livre de Janse"nius, et qu'il
n'y a point trouve" les propositions condamn£es
par le feu pape ; et neanmoins que, comme il con-
damne ses propositions en quelque lieu qu'elles se
rencontrent, il les condamne dans Jansenius, si elles
y sont.'

" La question sur cela est de savoir s'il a pu, sans
teme'rite', te"moigner, par la qu'il doute que ces
propositions soient de Jansenius, apres que Messieurs
les Eveques ont de'clare' qu'elles sont de lui."

He proceeds in like vein to satirize the triviality
of his opponents' arguments, and the light infantry
of the " Lettres Provinciales " penetrated into spots
which the heavy cavalry of Arnauld's charges failed
to reach. Only five of the " Lettres Provinciales "
dealt with the question of Jansenism ; the other
thirteen were direct attacks upon the Jesuits.

But though Pascal employed in these controversial
letters the indifferent tone of a man of the world,
a light and airy wit and a biting irony, he, in common
with the other recluses of Port-Royal, pursued the
narrow way with an unswerving intensity of pur-
pose that made ruthless sacrifice of all that ordinary
humanity holds dear. Pascal did not join Port-
Royal till 1655, twelve years after the death of
Saint-Cyran ; but the influence of that remarkable
man was so worked into the convent that it retained
his impress till the very death. Nearly seventy

278 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

years after Saint-Cyran was in the grave, twenty-
two old and feeble nuns still remained at Port-
Royal. Isolated, excommunicated, many of them
paralytic and dying, they refused absolutely to
abandon the faith that their predecessors had learned
from Saint-Cyran ; and they were dispersed with
every circumstance of cruelty. It was chiefly the
connexion of Saint-Cyran with Port-Royal that
made it famous. It was this connexion that brought
about its ruin.

We have already touched upon the friendship
between Saint-Cryan and Jansen : their long com-
munity of study and doctrine. Jansen, who did
not hesitate to push his creed to its extreme limits
— he accepted the doctrine that still-born infants are
condemned for eternity to hell-flame — seems only
to have had one tenderness, his affection for his
friend. Saint-Cyran was as hard, as rigid in doctrine
as Jansen, but he desired with a passionate intensity
the salvation of every individual human soul. He
was ruthless in his methods of achieving this supreme
goal ; he would admit of no hesitation, no com-
promise ; he demanded the complete and absolute
surrender of self. Yet Saint-Cyran was no tyranni-
cal director, imposing his will upon those who had
placed themselves under his guidance. It was not
dependence on man that he desired to foster, but
dependence on God ; not submission to man, but
growth in God. His insight into human character
was amazing ; he probed its depths with unfailing
penetration and sympathy. This great doctor of

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 279

souls had for each individual case a different treat-
ment, a different remedy to be pursued with infinite
patience and complete thoroughness. " It is a
great mistake to guide all souls alike," he wrote to
Marie-Claire, Ang61ique's sister, " each soul must
have its own rules. Many things may be done
without danger by the innocent which would be
most dangerous for those who are wounded by sin ;
for although they are healed by repentance they are
not exempt from the weakness which their wounds
have left."

This discrimination in guidance accounts, no
doubt, for the ascendancy obtained by Saint-Cyran
over characters so different in type. The most
brilliant men of the age owned his sway ; the most
timid women of the cloister sought his direction.
It was not, however, accident that made Port-Royal
the instrument of his views. The life led by the
reformed nuns was based on the principles under-
lying his creed ; the inherent sinfulness of man ;
salvation by the Grace of God alone. The Mere
Angelique found in him the complement of herself,
the ideal director ; he found in Port-Royal the
exact conditions he sought, to clothe his faith in
flesh and blood. Jansenism, says Sainte-Beuve,
is principally an affair of theology ; therefore we
are bound to emphasize the fact that Saint-Cyran
in his direction was concerned almost entirely with
its spiritual side. The young soldier convert,
de Sericourt, once asked Saint-Cyran for a method
of prayer. " Monsieur de Saint-Cyran replied more

280 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

by gesture than by speech. Joining his hands
lightly, inclining his head a little, and raising his
eyes towards God, he answered : ' We need only this,
monsieur. It is enough that we should remain
humbly in the presence of God, being only too
favoured if He regards us.' ' " Prayer," he wrote
on another occasion, " is the channel that unites
the heart of a Religious to that of God, which is his
Spirit. It is by this that she may draw the waters
of Heaven, which rise and descend from us to God,
and from God to us by means of this spiritual
channel, which is prayer. All that is done in
religion, even eating and sleeping, is prayer, when
we do it simply in the order required of us, without
adding or taking away by our caprice and vain
whims. . . . It is only necessary that in simplicity
without attempting any violent mental effort, we
hold ourselves before Him with the desire of love
in our whole soul, and without other voluntary
thought, and then all the time we are on our knees
will be held as prayer before God, who accepts the
humble endurance of involuntary distractions as
freely as the finest aspirations we can formulate."
The bitter controversies that have centred round
Port-Royal have sometimes obscured the deep
spiritual life led by the nuns and recluses. Indeed,
it seems sometimes a little difficult to account for
the violent opposition engendered by Port-Royal.
Richelieu imprisoned Saint-Cyran for five years,
but the cause of his enmity is a little obscure. The
Cardinal had tried to win Saint-Cyran as an

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 281

adherent ; he had offered him, it is said, eight
bishoprics in succession. Once, when surrounded
by his courtiers, Richelieu had touched Saint-
Cyran on the shoulder — " Gentlemen, you see here
the most learned man in Europe." No doubt he
came later to regard Saint-Cyran as a dangerous
rival — " more dangerous than six armies," he said.
Further, Saint-Cyran was gathering about him a
party of some of the most influential men in France.
" A great many calamities would have been averted,"
Richelieu remarked, " if Luther and Calvin had
been shut up as soon as they began to dogmatize."
So the Cardinal shut up Saint-Cyran ; but the work
of the abbot marched on. Monsieur le Maistre
sought Saint-Cyran's direction before the imprison-
ment of the latter; the great Arnauld, after his
imprisonment. Sensational conversions these, that
made a nine days' wonder in Paris.

For Le Maistre was the most brilliant advocate of
his time. Born of a great race of lawyers, he bid
fair to eclipse them all. He was the grandson of
Monsieur Amauld, and the son of Angelique's elder
sister. Great in gifts of eloquence, great in vigour
of intellect, great in charm of personality, his
success at the Bar was immediate and striking.
Popular preachers knew it was vain to expect a
congregation on the days when Le Maistre was
pleading, for all Paris flocked to the Courts. When
he was only twenty-five the Chancellor made Le
Maistre Councillor of State ; Richelieu spoke of him
with admiration. With weighty influence thus

282 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

added to his natural genius, he might have gone any
length. The zest of life was strong in him ; the
world's praise sang in his ears ; suddenly, before he
was thirty, he stopped in his headlong career of
triumph, renounced the pomp and glory of this
world, put himself under Saint-Cyran's direction,
and shut himself in a little room to devote his life
henceforth wholly to God. " For a hundred years,
perhaps," he writes, with most interesting frankness,
" there has not been another man placed as I was
in the midst of the corruption of the Palais, in the
prime of life, and possessing every advantage of
connexion, and all the vanity of the orator, choosing
the moment when his reputation was most firm, his
wealth most assured and his hopes at their highest,
to break every bond and throw off all the enchant-
ment whereby mankind is held, making himself
poor when he had hitherto laboured for riches ;
practising austerity and penitence where he had
hitherto revelled in luxury ; living in solitude where
he had hitherto been courted by other men ; caring
only for contemplation where he had been wont to
care only for work ; shrouding himself in the dark-
ness of a hidden life where he had always been in
the midst of excitement and notoriety ; and finally,
practising continual silence when his claim for
admiration rested upon speech."

We shall have to show later how the greatness
of Port-Royal is linked with the greatness of the
amazing family of the Arnaulds ; how it drew sister
after sister, brother after brother, nephews and

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 283

nieces, within its austere circle. Le Maistre was
the first of the recluses, and dominated them till
his death. He had no wish to become monk or
priest : he desired merely to live in retirement.
The nuns of Port-Royal were at that time lodged in
Paris, having abandoned, in 1625, the Convent of
Port-Royal des Champs, a few miles south-west
of the capital. Catherine, the mother of Le Maistre,
though not then professed, spent much of her time
at Port-Royal, and her four sisters were nuns in the
convent. She proposed to Saint -Cyran to build
for her son a little lodge in the courtyard of the
convent. The building was begun in 1637, and in
1638 Le Maistre took up his abode there. He was
joined by his soldier brother and a few other soli-
taries. So, by natural process, and without fixed
design, the recluses became attached to the Convent
of Port-Royal. The confessor brought with him
four boy pupils, and these formed the nucleus of the
Port-Royal schools, afterwards so famous.

The force and tenacity of the inner religion is well
shown in the fact that no outer pledges were given
or required. " There is no institution for special
discipline here," wrote Le Maistre, "nor even a
fixed place of abode ; there is no rule but that of
the Gospel, no bond save that of the charity that is
Catholic and universal, no aim, individual or col-
lective, save that of reaching heaven. It is only a
place of absolutely voluntary retreat, where no one
comes unless he be led by the Spirit of God, and
no one stays unless the Spirit of God retains him.

284 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Those who are there live together as friends by that
common liberty of choice which the king permits
to all his subjects. But they are Christian friends
joined together by the blood that Jesus Christ shed
for all men, and which, by the Holy Spirit, has so
filled their hearts that their union is closer, stronger,
and purer than the deepest and firmest of earthly
friendships." Matins were said in the chapel at
one A.M. and finished at two, at which hour the nuns
came in. Literary work occupied any leisure left
over from prayer, study, meditation. The recluses
were not occupied only in controversial writings ;
de Saci, a brother of Le Maistre, a priest, translated
the Bible, which appeared in Paris in instalments
from 1672 to the end of the century. A French
translation of it already existed, but it had been made
by Protestants, and was not therefore acceptable to
Jansenist priests. Le Maistre translated " The Lives
of the Saints," d'Andilly, Ang61ique's eldest brother,
Josephus, St Augustine's " Confessions," and many
other works. The untiring energy of the Port-
Royal recluses is well summed up in the immortal
phrase of the great Arnauld : " Rest ! have we not
eternity to rest in ? "

The great Arnauld figures in the history of Port-
Royal as largely as his nephew Le Maistre. (Arnauld,
le petit oncle, was a few years younger than his
nephew, and twenty years younger than his sister
Angelique). He was a priest, and Doctor of The-
ology at the Sorbonne. We have already touched on
his book, " De la Frequente Communion." Nothing

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 285

illustrates more clearly the unique position held by
Saint-Cyran than the letter which Arnauld, himself
a priest, addressed to the abbot in prison (1638) :

" MY FATHER, — Permit me to call you by this name,
since God has given me the will to be your son.
For years I have been in a continual lethargy,
seeing what is good, and not doing it. ... Through
my own miserable experience I have learned the
truth of these words : the truth in us is darkened
by the lure of trifling things. My father, for about
three weeks God has been crying in my heart, and
He has given me ears to hear."

Saint-Cyran replied : " You have become master
of my life as soon as you have become servant of
God." He bade him " distil into your heart all the
knowledge you have in your head, so that it may rise
again and spread when God pleases."

Arnauld devoted himself to the promulgation of
Jansenist views with a zeal and a violence that
brought about his downfall. Pamphlet after
pamphlet issued from his teeming brain. In 1656
he was condemned by the Sorbonne — chiefly for
stating that the fall of St Peter was due to a with-
drawal of Grace — a view held by many of the
early Fathers. Thenceforward he fought against the
world — " ce petit homme noir et laid" — stubborn,
indomitable, continually in hiding, fleeing from
persecution, maintaining a lost cause with a per-
sistent energy that no defeat could weaken.

286 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

He is in every way a contrast to his eldest brother
d'Andilly, twenty-four years older than himself,
who joined the recluses in 1644. With this hand-
some old man, gracious, debonair, the favourite of
courts, we associate all the amenities of Port-
Royal. For in 1638 the recluses and their pupils
— some ten to twelve persons in all — moved from
Paris to the old deserted convent of Port-Royal
des Champs in the country. This had been
abandoned by the nuns twelve years before, and
was falling into decay and ruin ; here the solitaries
lived amid varying vicissitudes, first in the convent
itself, then, when the nuns came back, in dwellings
outside. They were dispersed no less than four
times, in 1638, in 1656, in 1661, and finally in 1679.
At the dispersal of 1656 there were twenty solitaries
and fifteen children, among them Racine. But
after the periods of persecution, the solitaries used
to return ; and under the direction of d'Andilly, the
swamp on which the convent was situated became a
fruitful garden. He caused the marsh to be drained,
and conduits for the water to be made, and the
land to be laid out in terraces and walks. D'Andilly
grew magnificent fruit, which was sold for the benefit
of the poor. So Racine writes :

" Je viens & vous, arbres fertiles,
Poiriers de pompe et de plaisirsj t i"

So immoderate was the zeal of the recluses in this
work, much of which they did with their own hands,
that their directors had to check it under obedience.

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 287

The core of our subject is the cloister, strictly
enclosed, yet radiating forth a keen and stimulating
influence on its surroundings. Encircling the cloister
we have a band of recluses — men of iron will, who
required no monastic vows to hold them to a life
of strictest discipline and abstinence. Le Maistre
dominates them all ; Antoine Arnauld secretly
comes and goes ; d'Andilly, patriarch of the com-
munity, grows his enormous pears ; Pascal, the
last of the saints, as he has been called, writes his
immortal " Pense"es " between bouts of intolerable
suffering. "La foi parfaite, c'est Dieu sensible au
cceur," he says. And that, after all, we may take
as the complete expression of Port-Royal. It was
the desire for this experience that drew both nuns
and recluses to Port-Royal, that enabled them to
dispense not only with the luxuries and even the
necessities of life, but also with the trappings and
lures of religion. In profligate France in the
seventeenth century a little community of men and
women stripped themselves bare of all things for the
love of God, and embraced a life of monotony and
hardship, impossible to be rightly understood except
by those who have heard the call. This is the central
fact of Port-Royal and of the influence of Port-
Royal ; but this fact is often obscured by the great
mass of controversy, of invective and intrigue, of
logic and dialectic that has accumulated round the
convent. We have endeavoured, tentatively at
least, to penetrate this mass ; and so we arrive at
the Mere Angelique.

288 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

The Kernel

We have to start this chapter with a somewhat
scandalous recital. The corruption of the Church at
various epochs has already been alluded to in these
pages ; at certain periods when it became acute,
great-hearted reformers appeared to restore once more
the noble practice and high aim that had suffered
deterioration. The greater the demoralization, the
greater the need for inexorable cauterization : exces-
sive austerities were due to natural reaction against
excessive disorders. The severity of the rule and
doctrine imposed by the Mere Angelique are therefore
best understood by reference to the conditions pre-
vailing in the religious houses of her time. Fitting
prelude to our theme, Henry of Navarre, genial in
manner, jovial in appearance, is the first figure to ride
with debonair gaiety out hunting across these pages.
He reins up his steed at the gates of the convent
of Bertaucourt, near Amiens, and asks admission.
What business has this free-thinking king, who con-
sidered Paris well worth a Mass, to do with abbess
or nuns ? Simply — " le Roi s'amuse " : he has come
to visit " la Belle Gabrielle " ; and the sister of " la
Belle Gabrielle," Madame d'Estrees, is the complais-
ant Abbess of Bertaucourt. " La Belle Gabrielle,"
however, finds Bertaucourt somewhat distant from
Paris and inconvenient for the visits of her volatile
king. She takes this opportunity of urging Henry
to move Madame d'Estrees as abbess to the more
important convent of Maubuisson. Henry at first

I \!l KraMU I.UHI. AKV/tt'l.I)/™,/™-

-:•-..-. ,',SR,,,;,,'\t\,;f/,a,,u/MLy .„>•'" tm'w,.,* LnHr

rjlrrm :l<s,rJ, eu.'ttrr .«, rll.iiw rfft limula m «

THE M£;RE ANGELIQUE
From I/an Schnf fen's engraving of the portrait by Philiffe i/e Chanif

THE MERE ANG£LIQUE 289

demurs — perhaps he does not want "la Belle
Gabrielle" too near the capital. Finally, however,
he gives his promise, and the manner in which he
sets about the affair is particularly instructive.

The convent of Maubuisson possessed the some-
what rare right of electing its own abbesses — a right,
however, that had never been confirmed. A new
abbess had recently been elected. One day she was
told that the King had stopped at the door. Great
was the joy of the nuns at this signal honour, and
Henry was received with all reverence and respect.
In casual conversation with the simple abbess he
touched on this question of election, and asked her
by what right she held her title. She, thinking to
obtain from him the much-desired confirmation of
the privilege by royal patent, fell incontinent into
the trap. " It is yours, Sire, to confer this right,"
she said. Following this declaration, she heard that
Henry had procured bulls from Rome to dispossess
her. The King himself brought Madame d'Estrees
to Maubuisson, held a chapter, and made the nuns
promise obedience. He had thus two convenient
convents at which he could visit " la Belle Gabrielle."

It is in truth an ugly story. Madame d'Estrees
was no fit person to be put in charge of any abbey.
For, abbess as she was, she had had twelve daughters ;
these were educated in her convent in accordance with
the rank of their respective fathers. After this we
are not surprised to learn that the convent was
anything but wisely governed. The nuns acted
comedies before a select circle of guests and adapted

290 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

their religious garb to meet the fashion. On summer
days they used to join the monks of St Martin de
Pontoise, and dance with them beyond the convent
walls. Grave moral irregularities ensued ; yet An-
toine Arnauld, the Advocate-General to Henry IV.,
did not hesitate to place in Madame d'Estrees'
charge his little girl aged nine years old, the subject
of this sketch. She remained at Maubuisson
for two impressionable years and took the veil
there.

Antoine Arnauld was a far-seeing father ; he wished
to make due provision for all his children. Not all
his daughters could aspire to marriage ; the Religious
life offered a career both praiseworthy and dignified.
But Monsieur Arnauld had no desire to see his girls
simple nuns ; they must have a position worthy their
parentage ; they must be abbesses. His second and
third daughters, Jacqueline and Jeanne, were at this
time seven and five years old. Monsieur Arnauld
had no scruple as to vocation ; it never occurred to
him to question the future fitness of his daughters for
the work. The influence of Henry IV. was obtained ;
abbots were made complaisant by a royal word.
Jacqueline (known as the Mere Angelique) became
co-adjutrix to the aged abbess of Port-Royal ; Jeanne
(known as the Mere Agnes) at once assumed the
position of abbess of St Cyr. The Holy See, how-
ever, was not quite so easily won over ; and Arnauld,
though he was a devout son of the Church, did not
hesitate to misrepresent the ages of his daughters to
gain his end. So, with a little manipulation, all was

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 291

accomplished, and the girls given a position befitting
their station.

The appointment of these children to somewhat
obscure convents was to have far-reaching results.
Monsieur Arnauld never dreamed that in thus settling
his daughters he was settling the destiny practically
of his whole family. His own wife was to take the
veil at Port-Royal after his death, six of his daughters
were to be nuns there, and five of his granddaughters
(the children of d'Andilly). Two of his sons,
d'Andilly and the great Arnauld, three of his grand-
sons, sons of Madame le Maistre, became Port-Royal
recluses. And, with a few exceptions, all these chil-
dren and grandchildren were gifted with an unusual
force of intellect and strength of character. Monsieur
Arnauld belonged to the " noblesse de la robe " :
his most famous oration was his philippic against
the Jesuits (1594). This has wittily been called
" the Original Sin " of the Arnaulds. His children
inherited the acuteness of mind, the critical faculty,
the sharp penetration, the independence of judgment
that we associate with the great exponents of the
law ; but with this was combined religious conviction
so overwhelming that all human obstacles gave way
before it. To many of them, religion was logic, and
therefore, all the more irresistibly, life.

The convent of Port-Royal had been founded in the
thirteenth century. It was built in a deep hollow
between shaggy woods in the valley of the Yvette, a
few miles south-west of Paris. Marshes and stagnant
water surrounded the building, which was over-

292 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

shadowed by a thick luxuriance of vegetation.
When St Bernard of Clairvaux fixed the details of
the Benedictine Rule, the nuns of Port-Royal adopted
his reform. The situation of their abbey made this
peculiarly appropriate, for St Bernard always estab-
lished his monasteries in deep valleys where the
horizon was shut out and the sky alone visible.

" Bernardus valles, colles Benedictus amabat,
Oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes."

The exhalation of poisonous mists, the damp
church and damp cells, the superabundance of rotting
vegetation, made the convent anything but healthy,
and this was one reason for the removal of the nuns
to Paris in 1625. Saint-Cyran, however, considered
such questions as health entirely beneath notice.
" It is quite as good a thing to praise God in an
infirmary, if that is His will, as in a church. There
are no better prayers than those we offer from a
bed of suffering."

In 1602 the abbess of Port-Royal died, and
AngeUique was sent for from Maubuisson to assume
the position. The little girl was now eleven, and
had already taken the veil. After a pretended
election by the thirteen nuns of the convent,
Angelique was installed abbess.

Beyond frivolity and ignorance, no serious faults
attached to the abbey. The confessor was a Bernar-
dine monk who cared only for hunting, and did not
know a word of the catechism. The nuns followed
the fashion, wore gloves, and masks for their com-

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 293

plexions, read romances, and visited their friends
beyond the walls. Visitors, including men, were
admitted within the precincts — Monsieur Arnauld
came often to supervise the convent's affairs. It was
an easy-going, aimless life that the sisters led, without
definite harm or definite good, and Angelique, as she
emerged into girlhood, began to feel a fierce resent-
ment against the meaningless and monotonous
existence into which she had been forced. She had an
active, energetic, passionate disposition ; the world
called her with its colour, its movement, its strife.
When she lay ill at her father's house in Paris, the
rustling satins and silks worn by her uncles and aunts
were a poignant distress to her ; and secretly she
had a pair of whalebone corsets made to improve her
figure.

Her conversion was due to one of those apparent
accidents of which life is full. A passing friar asked
to be allowed to preach a sermon at Port-Royal, and
as he preached, the light came to her. In a flash the
girl of sixteen saw. She saw a sight calculated to
terrify and appal the strongest soul. She saw the
overwhelming Greatness of God, which often we are
unable to express except in terms of our own littleness.
She saw, beside this dazzling Purity, the world in
hideous colours of sin ; she saw beside this stupendous
Majesty and Power, man, weak, helpless, diseased.
Extreme self-abasement is the only way in which
some can measure the towering awfulness of Godhead :
this was the chosen way of the nuns and recluses of
Port-Royal. St Fran?ois de Sales wrote to Ange"lique

294 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

of God guiding the stumbling steps of the soul as a
father his child, to whom he whispers, " Gently, my
child, go gently." But not so did AngeHque vision
Him. There are some natures to whom softness
seems a sign of weakness ; to whom Omnipotence must
appear inexorable. Angelique's character was of
stern fibre, and required, perhaps, the vibration of
a severe faith. But from the very first her path was
a path of suffering.

For, with the realization of God came a realization
of her tremendous responsibility, of her utter in-
sufficiency. She was Abbess of a convent of the
Benedictine Rule, a convent living in sin, false to its
vows of poverty and enclosure. Often, in abject
humility, she desired to throw off a weight too heavy
for her young shoulders, and turn simple nun. Her
confessors, to whom she confided her anguish of
difficulty, only bewildered her with contradictory
advice. Some bid her carry her reform by assault,
some counselled inactivity, a hopeful patience.
She sought to purify her judgment, to obtain divine
leading, by mortifications, the excesses of which she
afterwards acknowledged to be the excesses of youth,
and she fell a prey to physical depression and religious
melancholy. Yet out of this difficult experience, out
of every extreme and every moment of despair, she
was to gain that knowledge which was to make her
so powerful a director of souls — she was to win the
understanding of spiritual states, the power to inspire
and to heal.

" The road that leads to life is very narrow," she

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 295

wrote later on, " the cross that our Lord Jesus Christ
commands us to bear after Him is very painful to
the flesh. It is therefore folly to imagine that we
can proceed along the narrow path to heaven, thus
loaded, without suffering, Nevertheless, we are so
unreasonable that we desire to go without difficulty.
It is an absurdity. God will not change His laws for
us. We must make up our minds to choose the pain
and bitterness of our Lord's cross in this world, or
damnation in the next. The hardness of our hearts
requires us to think of this frequently, that fear at
least may stimulate us."

This is Angelique's creed ; and it is a terrible
creed. In no other creed is so awful a stress put upon
the reality of God's power, the dependence of man
upon God. Small wonder that the girl's health
suffered, and that her nuns saw her pining away
before their very eyes. It was love for her that
brought about the first reform. The sisters came to
her begging to know the cause of her grief, promising
to perform whatever she might desire. The young
Abbess assembled the nuns in chapter and suggested
that they should fulfil their first vow, the vow of
poverty, by sharing their goods in common. Without
hesitation the nuns went to their private treasure-
chests and heaped their little possessions in a pile
before Angelique. So, by the voluntary submission
of the sisters, Ang61ique accomplished her first reform.

The rule of cloistration was more difficult to
enforce. By the Benedictine Rule the nuns were
forbidden to admit a layman beyond the convent

296 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

parlour, or speak with him except from behind the
convent grille. For centuries, however, this had been
a dead letter. Monsieur Arnauld, as we have said,
entered the convent when he pleased, dined in the
refectory, went freely about the buildings. It was no
stranger who was forcing her nuns to be unfaithful
to their vows, but the father whom Angelique loved
and feared, the benefactor of her abbey. In those
days the father was considered by right the autocrat
of the family ; Monsieur Arnauld was in addition
a man of powerful personality. Only a heroic
courage could have inspired this girl of eighteen to
defy him. But the claims of her faith were urgent,
and admitted of no trifling. Monsieur Arnauld wrote
to announce a visit on the 25th of September 1609,
the day afterwards famous in the annals of Port-
Royal as the Journte du Guichet.

On the previous night Angelique fasted and
prayed. About eleven o'clock in the morning she
heard the carriage wheels drive up outside the convent
gates. Monsieur Arnauld got out with his wife,
his eldest daughter, Catherine le Maistre, his son
d'Andilly, and another daughter. He found the
gates closed against him and began knocking violently.
Angelique opened a little wicket, the guichet, and
begged her father to come into the parlour and speak
to her through the grille. But Arnauld would not
listen to reason. The two could not see each other,
and Angelique stood trembling but firm under the
storm of sound that assailed her, the knocking at the
gates, the commands of her father, the shrill expostu-

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 297

lations of her mother, the abuse of d'Andilly. Her
nuns gathered about her, many of them indignant
at her action. " It is a shame not to open to Monsieur
Arnauld," they said. At last Arnauld, weary of the
conflict and humiliation, and seeingthat remonstrance
was vain, told his groom to harness the horses.
Had he driven away in bitterness, Angelique's
victory would have cost her dear. But at the last
he had a moment of relenting. He consented to see
her at the grille : father and daughter stood face to
face. His anger died down ; he was pale with grief
and emotion ; he addressed her with gentle words of
affection. She had been able to withstand the
tempest of reproach, but his tenderness was more than
she could bear. She fell in a dead faint on the floor.

Monsieur Arnauld's resentment was now turned to
anxiety. He shouted for the nuns, and when Angeli-
que had recovered from her faint, and he saw how
weak and worn she was, he offered no further resist-
ance. The nuns wheeled her on a couch close to the
grille, and she and her father talked quietly together
and came to an agreement. So Angelique emerged
from this day of battle, not only victorious, but
almost unhurt.

Thus this girl of eighteen succeeded in restoring to
her convent the Primitive Rule concerning poverty
and enclosure. It needed a strong intellect to grasp
these fundamental principles of the Rule ; a strong
faith, a high courage, to fight single-handed against
custom, against the indifference and love of ease of her
nuns, against her own natural affections. " Truly

298 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

it is a droll affair," she said to d'Andilly, when he
remonstrated with her. " They made me a nun at
nine years old, when I did not wish to be one, and
when my age made it almost impossible that I should
so wish. And now that the wish is come, they would
force me to damn myself by neglecting my Rule.
I am not responsible. They did not ask my leave
in making a nun of me, and I shall not ask theirs to
live as a nun and seek salvation."

The chief intention of these outer reforms was to
make more real the inner spiritual life of every nun.
The existence led within this little ill-constructed
convent was of the strictest. Matins were said at
two A.M., winter and summer, and the nuns did not
go to bed again. Much of the day was spent in
chapel ; a little manual labour was ordained ; the
hour for recreation was short, and speech was dis-
couraged. The nuns wore coarse serge, and slept in
coarse serge sheets. Instrumental music, ornament,
all that makes appeal to the emotions, was strenu-
ously banished. Yet, in the course of a few years,
the number of the nuns increased from thirteen to
eighty. The fame of the convent was noised abroad ;
missionary nuns went from Port-Royal even on
distant expeditions to other convents to spread the
reform. Sainte-Beuve calls the nuns " de grande
practiciennes des ames, des ouvri£res apostoliques
consommees."

It is sometimes difficult for the layman to under-
stand the enthusiasm for a life so hard, so monotonous,
so austere. A. K. H., in an admirable book on

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 299

Ange"lique of Port-Royal, has approached this question
with much sympathy. He quotes from Pere Choc-
arne Dominicaine : " The Religious is one who pro-
fesses, if not to attain, at least to attempt continually
to reach the highest point, the love of God in denial
of self. All religious discipline rests on the great idea
of renewing the unity betwixt God and man by sacri-
fice. But the world, which sees the sacrifice and not
its reward, which sees the scar and not the hand that
gave the wound, the world is astonished and repelled."
A. K. H. adds : " Monasticism can offer nothing but
wearisome monotony and useless self-denial, if it
could reasonably be viewed at all apart from the
thought of Christ. There, and there only, is its
explanation, and the first step towards even super-
ficial understanding of it is the realization that for the
true Religious there can be no half -measures. . . .
Those who have been permitted to aspire to a sense
of the companionship of Christ, must lose even a
thought of sacrifice. No gift can seem costly to the
giver if in the depths of his soul he is certain of so
great a recompense. Once admit the fact of this
certainty, and the true theory of monasticism ceases
to be a mystery, the most austere of Trappists
excites no wonder, and those only demand com-
miseration who pause to weigh the worth of what
they give, and by reserving a fraction of the whole,
forfeit the glorious knowledge of its acceptance."

And now our story brings us again to the abbey of
Maubuisson and to Madame d'Estre"es. After the
death of Henry IV. the convent lost his powerful

300 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

protection, and its scandals were too notorious to be
overlooked. The Abbess refused either to leave the
convent, or to meet the high dignitaries who came
to parley with her. A warrant had to be obtained
for her arrest. The provost arrived, provided with
scaling ladders, and with some difficulty managed to
seize her, and carried her away.

The convent of Maubuisson was of the Benedictine
Order, and was, like Port-Royal, under the jurisdiction
of the monks of Citeaux. The Father-General, there-
fore, approached Ange"lique, begging her to assume
the position of Abbess, in order to bring about a
reform. Ang61ique had spent two years of her child-
hood at Maubuisson ; the stupendous nature of the
task demanded of her appealed to her ardent tempera
ment. She thirsted for opportunities of labour,
of endurance, of sacrifice, and in 1618 she went to
Maubuisson. The work before her was of a nature
to affright the most courageous.

We have tried to give some idea of the moral
disorder that reigned in the convent ; the ignorance
was equally appalling : the nuns all confessed them-
selves in the same words, and for greater convenience
they had written out this confession in a book which
they used to lend to each other. Ange"lique set herself
with heroic determination to cope with these innumer-
able evils. She spared neither herself nor anyone
else. To her young sister, Marie-Claire, who accom-
panied her, she said : " It will require us to put away
all thought of our own health or our own interests
that we may save the souls of others. I know your

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 301

bodily weakness, and have therefore already made
your life an offering to God, having small doubt that
you will forfeit your health." By her own practice,
by ceaseless vigilance, by her power to sustain and
inspire, by passionate prayer, she sought to help and
raise those who had fallen away so far ; but the task
was one almost beyond human strength. She then
conceived the expedient of leavening this mass of
indifference and rebellion by introducing a large
number of novices whom she might train night and
day — girls of high aspiration and, by preference, of
little wealth, whose example must influence the
community. Within a year thirty new recruits
were under her care. It was at this time that she
made the acquaintance of St Fran£ois de Sales —
" God was truly and visibly in this holy bishop,"
she wrote. But in spite of the confidence and
admiration he inspired in her, Fra^ois de Sales
exercised little influence on her story or on the story
of Port-Royal. His was a creed of abounding love,
welling up continuously like a fountain, bubbling
over and over in rainbow-coloured images, flashing,
innumerous. " Tout par amour, rien par force " —
those were the words continually on his lips. He
brought Angelique a measure of peace, but her soul
perhaps required the tonic of a harsher creed. Not
till she met Saint-Cyran did she find the director
after her own heart.

Meanwhile Madame d'Estre"es was not idle. She
escaped from the retreat in which she had been placed,
and gathered about her a band of her old lovers and

302 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

admirers. These noblemen she left outside the
convent walls, and herself obtained secret admission
into the convent. As AngeUique was going to choir,
she met Madame d'Estrees face to face. We will give
Ang61ique's own account of this dramatic episode, as
she related it, many years later, to her nephew, le
Maistre.

" About the hour of Tierce the abbess appeared
among us, having left Monsieur de Sange" and his
companions outside. As we went into choir she
approached me and said : ' Madame, I have come
here to thank you for the care you have taken of my
abbey during my absence, and to advise you to return
now to your own, leaving me in charge of mine.'
I answered : ' Madame, I should be most willing to
do so if I might, but you know that it is our Superior,
M. 1'Abbe" de Citeaux, who bade me come to take
direction here, and having come under obedience,
it is only under obedience that I can leave. . . .
Therefore forgive me if I take the Abbess's place.'
And therewith I took my place, having the support
of the nuns whom I had admitted within the year."
The confessor came to her after dinner and advised
her to withdraw. " I told him that I would not do
so and that my conscience would not permit it.
But I was yet more astonished to see him come into
the church with M. de Sang6's four gentlemen,
and come forward as their leader to exhort me once
more to yield to force and depart, to prevent the
evil that might come if I forced them to take violent
measures. (One even fired a pistol, imagining he would

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 303

frighten me by so doing.) But I was not agitated,
and I answered again that I would not retire except
under compulsion, as it was only under these cir-
cumstances that I should feel myself absolved by
God. At this point my nuns surrounded me, and
each one placed her hand within my girdle, thereby
so tightening it that I could hardly breathe. Madame
d'Estre"es grew heated in abuse of me, and — she having
touched my veil and given it a little pull as if she
desired to drag it from my head — my sisters, who
were lambs, became as lions, and one, who was big and
strong (her name was Anne de Ste Thede, the
daughter of a gentleman) went close to her and said :
' Are you so insolent as to wish to take the veil from
Mme de Port-Royal ? You miscreant ! I know
you, I know what you are ! ' And therewith in full
face of these men with their drawn swords, she
snatched Mme d'Estre"es' veil from her head and
hurled it six paces away. Mme d'Estrees, seeing
I was resolved not to withdraw, bade these gentle-
men expel me by force, and this they did, laying hold
of my arms. I made no resistance, being well pleased
to depart and take my nuns away from a place where
there were such men as these, from whom I had every-
thing to fear, both on their behalf and on my own.
It was not, however, Mme d'Estrees' wish that
they should go with me, for she feared the publicity of
that. For this reason she had me placed in a carriage.
But no sooner had I taken my place than nine or ten
of my nuns followed me — three climbed on the coach-
man's box, three got up at the back like footmen, and

304 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

the rest clung to the wheels. Madame d'Estr6es
bade the coachman whip up his horses, but he
answered that he dared not, for he should kill many
of the nuns. Thereupon I sprang out of the carriage
with my sisters. I made them take strong waters
because the Plague was at Pontoise, whither I went
with thirty of them, marching two and two as in a
procession. . . . When we entered Pontoise the
people poured blessings upon us, exclaiming, ' Here
come the nuns of our good Mme de Port-Royal.
They have left the devil in their convent ! ' A
convenient house was offered the nuns for lodging,
and an express was despatched to Paris. On the
afternoon of the next day two hundred and fifty
archers arrived to reinstate Angelique. Madame
d'Estrees fled ; the archers proceeded to Pontoise,
and conducted Angelique and her nuns back to the
abbey. It was ten at night when the little procession
started. They returned as they had come, on foot ;
each of the archers had a torch in his hand and his
musket over his shoulder.

These thirty nuns, loyal and devoted, were to be
made a reproach to Angelique. Though Maubuisson
was a rich convent, Angelique was accused of having
impoverished the house by " filling it with beggars " —
for the novices had been received without dowries.
Angelique was stung to the quick ; she offered to
transfer all these sisters to Port-Royal, which had
only one-fifth the income of the larger convent. The
authorities consented ; the nuns of Port-Royal con-
sented ; Madame Arnauld sent carriages to convey

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 305

the sisters to their new home. The nuns of Port-
Royal received with delight this present that God had
made them " to enrich their house more and more,"
as Angelique said, "with the inexhaustible treasure of
poverty." Saint-Cyran, when he heard of this action
of Angelique 's, called it one of " sainte hardiesse."

In 1625 the Mere Angelique moved her community
from Port-Royal des Champs to Paris. Through the
generosity of Madame Arnauld, a large house had been
acquired for the convent in the Faubourg St Jacques.
The cause of this removal was twofold. The nuns
were suffering in health from the terribly overcrowded
condition of the house and its unwholesome surround-
ings. Fever was continual ; fifteen of the nuns died
in two years. But considerations of physical health
weighed only lightly with the Mere Angelique.
Her concern was almost wholly for the spiritual
health of the sisterhood ; and she believed that by
transferring the control of the house from the hands
of the monks to the hands of the episcopacy she would
free it from dangerous influence and interference.

St Benedict, as interpreted by St Bernard of Clair-
vaux, had ordained that the nuns should be under the
monks of the same community. One of the most
difficult problems that the Mere Angelique had to
meet, was how to reconcile her obedience to her
Superiors with her obedience to her conscience. For
the monks placed all the opposition they could in the
way of her reform. If convents were lax and dis-
ordered, monasteries were certainly not less so — and
Angelique's restoration of the Primitive Rule con-
u

306 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

veyed a covert reproach to all — nuns and monks —
who ignored it. " That I may show what direction
a nun may look for from a monk," she says, " I
only desire to set out what they lack in helping us in
the right way, concealing the miserable devices which
they make evil use of. When an abbess is haughty,
the confessor is her henchman. This is so absolutely
true that I have seen one occupied in planting the
abbess's flower-beds, where he placed her arms and
her cipher. Another I have seen carrying the train
of an abbess, as lackeys do to court ladies. If an
abbess is humble and holds the priesthood in rever-
ence, as is her duty, they become masters and tyrants,
so that no one may dare to act without their order —
which often means disorder." The first direction
that Pere Archange de Pembroke gave to the young
Angelique, " and one which has been of great service
to me," she writes, " was not ever to permit our
sisters to hold converse with a monk, not even with
a Capuchin, though he might preach like an angel."
The Bernardine directors at Maubuisson were almost
as great a trial to her as the degenerate nuns. " The
inconsequence and lack of spirituality in these monks
almost drove me to distraction," she writes, " and
if God had not held me up, I should have utterly
fallen away from grace." It was one thing for
women to obey the inspired Founders of orders,
another for them to be under the dominion of their
unworthy successors. Teresa herself, as we have
shown, was met by this difficulty, and unwise inter-
ference from friars did much to undermine her

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 307

Reform. Angelique hoped to solve her problem by
transferring allegiance from the monks of Citeaux to
the Archbishop of Paris. And yet — strange irony
— immediately after she had taken this decisive step
and won her freedom from a dangerous domination,
she gave herself into the direction of a man wholly
unable to guide her aright, who led her into quag-
mires of bitterness and remorse.

She met Sebastien Zamet, Bishop of Langres,
soon after he had experienced conversion. His
personality was attractive ; his enthusiasm inspiring.
He overflowed with admiration for Ang61ique's Re-
form, and had himself been the means of reforming
the important convent of Tard. Moreover, he
cherished a project of founding an order for the
perpetual adoration of the Sacrament. Already at
Port-Royal Angelique had established this practice,
and the similarity of aspiration created another bond
of sympathy. Her penetrating insight into char-
acter was for once at fault. She did not realize that
this man's eager piety — real as it may have been at
the moment — was no more than a passing phase.
She did not discern the passionate ambition, the love
of pomp and outward trappings, that lay hidden at
the roots of his nature. Deliberate herself, by his
impulsiveness she was carried off her feet ; and she
placed her convent of Port -Royal de Paris under his
direction.

Her desire to resign the burden of office was no
girlish whim. It had persisted through all these
years of work and responsibility, and a visit of Marie

3o8 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

de Medicis to the convent gave her the opening she
sought. She petitioned the Queen-mother to beg
the King to grant the abbey the privilege of electing
its abbess triennially. The boon was granted.
Ange"lique sent in her resignation. In 1630 the Mere
Genevieve, who had been one of her novices at Mau-
buisson, was elected in her stead.

And now Angelique was called upon to face a trial
more bitter than any she had experienced at Mau-
buisson. Genevieve was wholly under the influence of
Zamet ; Angelique as simple nun had the intolerable
pain of watching her labour of long years ruthlessly
torn down by the Abbess and Bishop . The Mere Gene -
vieve held that " the effect of their poverty, their
simplicity, their docility had been to make the nuns
imbecile," and she did all in her power to reverse the
usage of her predecessor. She had writing materials
put in all the cells, "and the church," wrote
Angelique, "was full of scents and drapery and flowers,
and every day new acquaintances were made. There-
with the most abnormal austerity. Fasts on bread
and water, the fiercest discipline, the most humiliating
penances conceivable." Angelique abhorred sensa-
tionalism in any form. " There is danger lest
voluntary penance means self-adornment rather than
self -surrender," she said. All that she had striven
against, hysteria, emotionalism, appeals to the senses,
were crowding back upon her purified convent.
And she had to look on, bound by silence and obedi-
ence. " You are condemning us," Zamet said to her
one day. " I say nothing," was Angelique 's reply.

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 309

" Your shadow condemns us then," was the Bishop's
retort. She answered : " Send me away wherever
you will, I will go."

Zamet had discovered by now that Angelique was
no tool for his purpose, and when in 1633 the Order
of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was
established, he sought to prevent her from obtaining
the position of Mother Superior. The Archbishop
of Paris, however, insisted on her appointment.

Zamet had drawn up the constitution of the Order
of Adoration, and ordained many rules that were just
and good, says Angelique, "but some were not either."
Indeed, no more striking contrast could be found
than the ideals held by Angelique and those aimed
at by the Founder of the Order. Angelique sought
nuns whose true vocation was the religious life ;
again and again she had accepted novices without
dowry, without social position. The Bishop would
not receive into his Order any sister unless she
brought with her ten thousand francs ; and he wished
above all to attract ladies of rank and title. The
convent was for this reason situated in a fashionable
quarter near the Court, and this outweighed in his
opinion the fact that the neighbourhood was noisy,
inconvenient and crowded. Angelique had a passion
for poverty, for simplicity : " Poverty consists in a
disposition of the heart to suffer the want of necessary
things," she says, " even to dying naked like Jesus
Christ. ... To die of poverty is to die with Christ
and in Christ. We should render thanks to God if
we were reduced to having nothing but bread and

310 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

water." The Bishop, however, desired the Church
of the Adoration to be the most beautiful and the
most ornate in Paris, and his nuns the most effective
in attire. They were to wear clothes made of the
choicest material, the habit was to be of white serge
with graceful folds and hanging sleeves ; a scarlet
cross was to be worked upon the scapulary. Angelique
believed that the way to God was the way of self-
denial ; but the Bishop desired to make everything
easy, so that the world of fashion might be drawn
to the convent. For instance, instead of chanting
matins at two in the morning, they were to be said
overnight at eight o'clock.

It is a little difficult to imagine this stern woman
in her striking robes amid these surroundings so
antagonistic to her nature. We do not know what
inward rebellion she suffered, but gradually her
dominating personality began to impress itself
upon the community. New difficulties, however, lay
ahead.

We have now come to a turning-point in the story
of the Mere Angelique. The first suspicion of heresy is
breathed against the nuns of Port-Royal — breathed,
indeed, in a fit of pique, the result of petty intrigues.

The Archbishop of Sens was associated with
the management of the Order of Adoration ;
he had continual differences with his colleagues,
and particularly disliked Zamet ; he was further
incited by the Carmelite community, who were
jealous of the new Order, to endeavour to secure
its suppression. Now Angelique's sister, the Mere

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 311

Agnes, had written many years before a little mystical
treatise of devotion which she called " The Secret
Chaplet." She had shown it to the Bishop of Langres,
who had approved it, but it was only intended for
her own private meditation. The Archbishop of Sens
procured a copy and laid it before the Sorbonne. It
was censured as being full of extravagance, imperti-
nence, error, blasphemy, and impiety, tending to
destroy the method of prayer instituted by Jesus
Christ. The Bishop of Langres was accused of being
the author of the treatise ; he found himself suddenly
regarded with disfavour, suspicion. Further, the
orthodoxy of the Port-Royal nuns was called into
question ; it was assumed that they were impreg-
nated with the doctrines of " The Chaplet." It
mattered nothing that they had never seen a copy
of the book — that when the storm came Angelique
herself was unable to procure one. Loyal daughter
of the Church, she knew not how to defend herself
or her community. The pamphlet had been sent to
Rome, and the possibility of papal condemnation
hung over her. Zamet, dazed by this untoward
turn of events, disappointed, helpless, was no more
than a broken reed to lean upon.

Angelique stood alone amid the consciousness of
ruin. She felt that the new Order was doomed.
Characteristically, she attributed this failure to her
own sinfulness. She had been weak where she should
have stood firm ; she had accepted conditions
unworthy of her ideals ; she had ignored her
experience and misused her opportunities. She

312 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

was burdened, too, with sordid financial responsi-
bilities, incurred by the Bishop. It was one of
the bitterest moments of her life. Later, she
became accustomed to the stigma of heresy, but
the first shock of such an accusation must have
been overwhelming. " So far did the persecution
spread," wrote Angelique, " that even the Court took
part, and we were proclaimed as heretics, as vision-
aries ; some went so far as to say we practised sorcery."

In this crisis Saint-Cyran comes upon the scene.
Defender of Port-Royal against the first charge of
heresy, the very doctrines he imposed upon the
community were to compass its downfall. Saint-
Cyran constituted himself the champion of "The
Secret Chaplet," and Zamet, only too eager to shift
a burden he was too weak to bear upon stronger
shoulders, placed the new Order under his direction.
So, for good or ill, the Order of the Adoration,
Angelique and Port-Royal, passed into the control of
the Abbot of Saint-Cyran.

Many names of men and women have been linked
together in these pages : Heloi'se and Abelard ;
Clare and Francis ; Teresa and John of the Cross.
Strong divergencies in temperament have drawn
together some of these couples ; in others, an
illuminating sympathy, an intuitive penetration
have made them one in spirit and in aim. But we
venture to think that few men and women have
been so identical in character and in ideal as Saint-
Cyran and the Mere Ang61ique. Yet they were
practically unacquainted with each other till middle

ll

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 313

life. He was fifty-three and she forty-three when
they came into close intercourse. Different as they
were in experience, in training and in sex, the faith
they held was the same in scope. They looked out
upon life from the same viewpoint, and were
agreed, not only upon ultimate questions, but upon
points of detail. " It should be realized," said the
Mere Angelique, " that he used no force to produce
a sense of penitence, nor did he insist on great
mortification or austerity. But by the grace of
God he was given the power of bringing home to
the hearts of men the love and reverence they owed
to God so strongly that a great sorrow for having
offended Him sprang up, and therewith so great
a desire to be reconciled that they straightway
desired to do more than he required. His ardent
care for souls involved no pressure on them, but
rather inspired hope and consolation in the thought
that God had wished to heal them by sending them
so good a physician, for he dealt with them in
uprightness and charity and by no methods that
were either severe or over-scrupulous." This is
Saint-Cyran seen at his best, through the eyes of one
who understood him. Ang61ique might almost have
applied to Saint-Cyran the judgment of character
pronounced upon herself by her sister-in-law,
Madame d'Andilly : "La Mere Angelique ressemble
aux bons anges qui effrayent d'abord et qui con-
solent apres."

Both Angelique and Saint-Cyran were stern and
inflexible ; both had a rare power of inspiring

314 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

devotion. Saint-Cyran's method of direction may
be studied in many documents and has been alluded
to in the foregoing chapter. Ange"lique instinctively
applied the same method in her reforms. There
was something virile in her nature that approxi-
mated her to him ; but at times there welled up in
her a great tenderness, such as the abbot, with all
his charity, never manifested. Surely a measure of
peace must have come to her after the storm when
she placed herself under the guidance, " strong, holy,
inspired," she writes, " of this servant of God."

The Convent of the Adoration soon ceased to exist,
and the nuns belonging to it were transferred to
Port-Royal. Angelique herself returned to her own
house in 1636. In 1647 the Pope granted a bull,
sanctioning her nuns to practise the perpetual
adoration of the Sacrament.

Lasting as was Saint-Cyran's influence, his actual
connexion with Port-Royal was brief. In 1638
he was imprisoned, and not released till 1643, after
Richelieu's death. Agnes was the first in the con-
vent to hear the good news of his freedom. It was
the hour of silence, and she snatched off her girdle
to indicate that the bonds of the prisoner were
broken. But a few months later, death more
effectually broke his bonds. It was during the
latter years of Saint-Cyran's life that the recluses
began to gather about Port-Royal.

From 1642 to 1654 Ange"lique was abbess, being
elected four times in succession. These twelve
years were years of comparative quiet. In 1648

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 315

Angelique returned to Port-Royal des Champs with
some of her nuns, leaving others in the Paris house,
and her letters of this year furnish a most vivid
picture, not only of the condition of France during
the Fronde, but of her own abounding practical
charity.

Twenty-two years had elapsed since the Mere
Angelique had removed the nuns from Port-Royal
des Champs. For ten years, during the intervals
of quiet, the recluses had laboured to make the spot
beautiful and fruitful. We can imagine the joy of
d'Andilly in conducting his sister over the garden,
and all the memories awakened in Angelique's
mind by the home of her childhood, the scene of her
conversion and her Reform. The Port-Royal nuns
had adopted in 1647 the habit of the nuns of the
Adoration, the white scapulary with the scarlet
cross on the breast. What far travels this must have
symbolized to Angelique from the simple black
habit of the Bernardines ! Yet a great measure
of happiness awaited her return. She arrived with
nine nuns about two in the afternoon. Her welcome
was overwhelming. Bells clashed ; all the peasants
of the district crowded to meet her in the courtyard
of the convent, remembering how good she had
been to them in the past. The women threw them-
selves at her feet and clasped her in their arms. At
the church door was another group : the recluses
assembled to welcome her, and before them a priest,
holding a cross. After her long travail of spirit and
all the unrest of a city atmosphere, and the canker

316 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

of sordid cares and remorse, the peace of Port-
Royal des Champs lay upon her like a blessing.
" This holy place moves me more than all others,"
she wrote. " God seems here in a special way."
The nuns felt the stir of a fresh spiritual enthusiasm ;
the influence radiated beyond the closed doors,
and the recluses increased in fervour. Le Maistre
writes of the nuns of Port-Royal as " our Ladies,
our Mistresses and our Queens."

Here we have a significant indication of the high
spiritual devotion felt by the solitaries for these
consecrated women, and we are able to realize a
little how the lives of the nuns and hermits, divided
though they were, reacted one upon the other.
But such glimpses are rare, for the cloister seals
many secrets ; and but for the Fronde, which
dragged the Mere Angelique's charity into the light
of day, we should never have known how untiring
she could be in effort, how generous in spending,
with what " marvellous joy " she could face difficulty
and danger.

This cruel war, so irresponsibly entered upon, had
brought bitter suffering upon the people. Angelique
opened wide her convent doors ; abbesses and ladies
came for shelter ; she had not room to receive the
peasants as well, but she took charge of all their
chattels and provisions, even their daily bread. All
was done with organization and order ; the goods
were carefully ticketed and packed where they could
be easily found. When every available corner of
space was filled, she piled them into the church —

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 317

the aisles first, and then the nave. " Our church
was so full of wheat, oats, peas, beans, pots, kettles,
and all kinds of rags, that we had to walk over
them to get into the choir, and, when we reached it,
the floor was covered with books piled up belonging
to our hermits. . . . We had horses in the room
beneath us, and horses opposite us in the chapter-
house, while in a cellar there were forty cows, belong-
ing to us and some of the poor peasants. All the
courts were full of fowls, turkeys, ducks and geese."
No wonder the convent reminded her of a Noah's
Ark ! " The farm buildings," she goes on, " were
full of the halt and maimed and wounded, and the
outer courts were full of cattle. In fact, if it had
not been for the great cold, we must have had the
Plague ; still the cold itself added to our discom-
fort, for our fuel failed, and we dared not send to
the woods to fetch more."

Food of course reached an exorbitant price : the
wretched peasants were dying of hunger and cold.
Angelique had good soup made for them in huge
cauldrons in the convent kitchen ; she also dis-
tributed large stores of apples and pears and beet-
root that had been grown under d'Andilly's direction.
The recluses took their share in the practical work.
They strengthened the defences of the convent ;
they formed an escort to guard the provisions which
from time to time Angelique managed to send to the
Paris house which was in danger of starvation.
" Our good hermits," wrote Angelique, "girded on
their swords again for our defence, and they also

318 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

threw up such strong barricades, that it would have
been difficult to take us by assault."

This picture of Angelique in her Noah's Ark of a
convent dwells long in the memory, illustrating as
it does her strong common-sense, her power of
organization, her resourcefulness, her capability,
and her large humanity. If in her later years she
became more vehement, so that even le Maistre
rather feared her, there was yet a deep tenderness
in her nature that welled up on occasion. For
instance, Jacqueline Pascal, the sister of Blaise
Pascal, had joined the convent as a novice ; but
her brother and her relatives refused to give her
her share in her rightful inheritance. She was very
unhappy. She tells us how the Mere Angelique sent
for her after Mass and kept her an hour, " my head
on her breast, embracing me with the tenderness of
a true mother, and doing everything in her power
to soothe my sorrow."

The courage with which the M£re Angelique met
the cruelties of war was equalled by the courage with
which she encountered the cruelties of persecution.
Never was a persecution more unjust. The nuns
were not able to read the heavy Latin book of
Jansen's that was the subject of the whole conten-
tion ; they were in no wise concerned with the
Five Propositions. They counted themselves true
daughters of the Church, vowed to a special devotion
to the Sacrament, and they had derived from Saint-
Cyran a firm belief in the efficacy of the priesthood.
In 1653 they had even signed the first formulary

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 319

condemning the Five Propositions, salving their
consciences, however, with the mental reservation
that the Propositions were not in the " Augustinus."
In view of future events it is pathetic to read what
the Mere Agn6s wrote with regard to this formulary :
" We condemn what it condemns without knowing
what it is ; for it is enough to know that it is given
by the Pope, and because we are daughters of the
Church, we are bound to revere any decree of the
Holy See." And yet the persecution was not
stayed. " They talk of nothing less than burning
or throwing us into the river," wrote Angelique
to the Queen of Poland, " throughout Paris they
have scattered leaflets with an exhortation to praise
God on account of the ruin of the Jansenists, which,
as your Majesty knows, is the unjust name they have
given to us who have no desire to be aught but
Christians and Catholics. . . ." Yet persecution
showed the fibre of heroism in these nuns ; it
proved that their desire for suffering, for humility,
was no vain boast. Angelique wrote to Arnauld on
the eve of his condemnation by the Sorbonne
(1655) : " The joy and holy quietude with which I
witnessed you go forth to suffer what God may
please, so charmed my mind that it effaced all
human fears such as natural affection and the tender-
ness I have always had for my poor little brother
would have engendered, by the thought of ills he will
be called upon to suffer, but which will turn into
true blessings. ... If your name is blotted from
among the doctors it will be the more surely

320 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

inscribed in the book of God. . . . Whatever
happens, my dearest father, God will be with you,
and you will serve Him better by your sufferings
than by your writings."

The persecution of Port-Royal was, however,
for a time interrupted by an event which the M&re
Angelique, the nuns and the recluses of Port-Royal,
the Church and the world in general, accounted a
miracle. A priest, a relative of the M&re Angelique,
had a great devotion in collecting relics. He
acquired, Angelique tells us, a thorn from the
Crown of Thorns, and he sent it, enclosed in a
crystal shrine, to the nuns of Port-Royal. Now
there was a little girl ten years old, a boarder at that
time in the convent, who had a malignant growth
on the left side of her face. The nun in charge
touched the spot with the case containing the relic,
and the child was cured. Seven physicians and
a surgeon gave a certificate that the cure surpassed
the ordinary powers of nature ; the Archbishop of
Paris pronounced the cure a miracle. The relic
was passed to other communities. Henrietta Maria,
once Queen of England, made a pilgrimage to it,
and it was believed to have effected at least eighty
cures. " The heart of the Queen was touched," says
Racine, " by God's visible protection of these poor
nuns." Pascal writes of the miracle in his sixteenth
letter : " We hear His voice (the voice of Jesus
Christ) at this very hour — that holy and terrible
voice that astounds all nature and consoles the
Church ; and I fear, my fathers (he is addressing

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 321

the Jesuits), that those who harden their hearts and
obstinately refuse to listen to Him when He speaks
as their God, will be condemned to listen in terror
when He speaks as their Judge."

Only for three short years, however, did Port-Royal
know peace. The Pope declared that the Five Pro-
positions were to be found in the " Augustinus," and
a synod of the clergy of France drew up a formulary
of submission to the Pope's decree, which ecclesi-
astics, nuns and even schoolmasters were to be
compelled to sign. No mental reservation was
possible now; to sign was to condemn Jansen and
to condemn Saint-Cyran. By open ways and
hidden ways the Jesuits worked upon the young
King, Louis XIV., urging him to exact obedience,
or enforce extreme penalties. The aim of Louis
was to achieve uniformity in the State, and he
recognized the Jansenists as a disturbing element.
In 1660 he announced his intention of entirely
extirpating Jansenism. The schools were broken
up ; the recluses dispersed ; the formulary insisted
upon. The nuns of Port-Royal de Paris would only
sign after putting some precautionary lines at the
head. Many of the nuns at Port-Royal des Champs
refused their signatures, and suffered horrible
imprisonment. Jacqueline Pascal, torn between
her duty to the Church, and her loyalty to what she
believed to be the truth, died of a broken heart.
Evils crowded upon the unhappy nuns thick and fast ;
on the 23rd April 1661, the sisters of Paris were
bidden to send away all their pensionnaires in three
x

322 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

days. There were thirty-three of these in Paris,
and about as many at Port-Royal des Champs.
Many of the girls were orphans, and had known
no other love but that of the nuns. There were
heart-breaking scenes at parting. Ange"lique, who
was at Port-Royal des Champs, hastened to Paris
to give her support to the sisterhood there. She
was then seventy years old. Her last words to
d'Andilly are recorded. They spoke together as
she was about to get into the carriage outside the
convent gates.

"Farewell, brother," she said; "whatever comes,
be of good courage."

" Do not fear for me, sister," he replied, " I have
plenty of courage."

" Ah, brother, brother, let us be humble," she
answered ; "we must remember that though
humility without firmness may be cowardly, yet
courage without humility is presumption."

On the 4th of May 1661, the nuns of Port-
Royal were commanded to send away the novices
and the postulants, and forbidden to receive any
in the future. " At length our good Lord has seen
fit to deprive us of all," Angelique wrote to Madame
de Sevigne", " fathers, sisters, disciples, children —
all are gone. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

" Fathers, sisters, disciples, children — all are
gone." This, then, was the end of Ange'lique's life
of heroic renunciation and endeavour. The aims
she had lived for, the reforms she had striven for,
were trampled in the dust and spit upon ; the men

THE MERE ANGELIQUE 323

and women and children she had loved and prayed
for were snatched out of her hands and given up to
cruel persecution. And that by the hand of the
Church she revered and adored, in whose fold alone
she believed salvation was to be found ! Shame,
aclumny, insult, were heaped upon this feeble and
dying old woman. But her courage never failed
her, her faith never wavered. " Blessed be the name
of the Lord."

Angelique is summed up in these few words of
hers. They sufficed her amid chaos, failure, ruin,
agony. They supported her in the terrors of death,
of which she had always an overpowering dread.
Peace came to her before the end, and a large trust
in the mercy of God. She died in August 1661.

" Pure as angels, they are proud as devils." This
was the verdict of the Archbishop of Paris on the
nuns of Port-Royal. But it was rather purification
than purity they sought — purification from the
disease of sin that affected every mortal being.
The call of Port-Royal was a call to repentance —
a call, stern, insistent, reaching soul after soul that
thirsted for holiness. And Port-Royal — if we
penetrate down to the innermost kernel of all —
was the Mere Angelique ; it was her inspiration that
made it what it was, that drew the devout women
and the grave men out of the whirlpool of frivolity
that they might seek to win a higher reality. It
was her influence that sent a thrill over the national
life, reawakening faith in spiritual things. To many
the doctrine that she taught, the aspect of God that

X2

324 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

she insisted upon is repellent, impossible. But it
is a doctrine that has been held by many noble men
and women, who have shaped their lives with
unflinching heroism to its demands. The soul of
the Mere Angelique radiated out through her nuns,
through her recluses, and through the world, and
though the framework of her labour perished, and
she went to the grave with the noise of its falling in
her ears, it is not for us to say that her sincere,
selfless life was in vain. " Let those be fierce
against you," says St Augustine, " who know not
with what toil the truth is discovered — with what
difficulty the eye of the inner man is made sound —
what sighs and groans it costs in ever so small a
degree to understand God."

INDEX

ABELARD, 35, 59, 60, 61, 70, 71,
72, 75, 82, 85, 93, 117, 118,
312 ; champion of Reason, 63 ;
intellectual standpoint, 63 ;
scientific attitude of mind, 64 ;
greatness as thinker and
teacher, 65 ; connexion with
University movement, 66 ;
encounter with St Bernard of
Clairvaux, 68 ; defeat, 69 ;
appearance, 73 ; early life,
74 ; letters, 76 ; circum-
stances of the correspondence,
77 ; his narrative, 78 et seq. ;
as lover, 79 ; Fulbert's re-
venge, 8 1 ; becomes monk,
81 ; " calamities," 83 ; se-
cond letter, 86 ; third letter,
87 ; Rule for Heloise, 89 ;
attitude towards women, 90,
91 ; death, 91 ; burial at the
Paraclete, 92 ; translation to
Pere la Chaise, 92

A cts of St Clare, 1 1 1

Acts of St Mary of Egypt, 15, 17

Adoration of the Sacrament,
Order of, 307, 309, 310, 314,

315

Agnes (Clare's sister), 118
Agnes, the Mere, 290 ,311, 314,

319

Aidan, St, 28
Alexander IV., 139
Ancren Riwle, 158, 159, 160
Angelp, Brother, 137, 138
Angelique, the Mere, 255, 271
272, 281, 287, 288 ; made
abbess at age of seven, 290 ;
installed abbess at age of
eleven, 292 ; " conversion,"
293 ; despair, 294 ; creed,

325

Ang61iqne, the Mere — continued
295 ; enforces Rule of Poverty,
295 ; refuses to open to her
father, 296 ; enforces Rule of
Cloistration, 297 ; life at Port-
Royal, 298 ; undertakes to
reform Maubuisson, 300 ; in-
troduces thirty novices, 301 ;
encounter with Madame
d'Estrees, 302 ; expelled from
convent, 303 ; marches with
nuns to Pontoise, 304 ; re-
stored to convent, 304 ; re-
turns to Port - Royal and
moves community to Paris,

305 ; complains of want of
spirituality in her directors,

306 ; puts herself under direc-
tion of Zamet, 307 ; resigns
position of abbess, 308 ; Mother
Superior of Order of the
Adoration, 309, 310 ; con-
sciousness of failure, 311 ;

Eersecution begins, 312 ;
aint - Cyran becomes her
director, 312 ; view of Saint-
Cyran, 313 ; elected abbess
of Port- Royal, 314 ; returns
to Port-Royal des Champs,
315 ; her convent during the
Fronde, 316, 317, 318 ; charity
and organizing power, 316,
317 ; tenderer traits, 318 ;
persecution recommences, 319;
the miracle at Port-Royal, 320 ;
dispersion of pensionnaires,
novices and postulants, 322 ;
unwavering faith, 323 ; in-
fluence, 324

Antony of Jesus, Father, 257,
259, 260, 268, 269

326 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Antony the Great, Saint, 5, 6, 8,

10
Archange de Pembroke, Pere,

306

Argenteuil, Convent of, 81, 84
Arius and Arians, 10, 67
Arnauld, Antoine (Angelique's

father), 281, 290, 291, 293,

296, 297
Arnauld, Antoine the "great"

(Angelique's brother), 275,

277, 284, 285, 287, 291. 319
Arnauld, Jacqueline (see the

Mere Angelique)
Arnauld, Jeanne (see the Mere

Agnes)
Arnauld, Madame (Angelique's

mother), 296, 304, 305
Athanasius, St, 7, 10
Augustine, Saint, 7, 227, 271,

273, 274, 275, 276, 324
Augustinus, by Jansen, 275, 276,

3*8, 321
Autobiography of St Teresa, 226

227, 237, 241

BARBAROSSA, Frederick, 123,

134
Bari, Archbishop of (afterwards

Urban VI.) (see Urban VI.), 217
Beatrice (Clare's sister), 119
Bel (or Baal), god, 49
Benedict, St, 31, 305
Bernard of Clairvaux, St, 63,

66, 67, 68, 69, 91, 146, 292,

305

Bernardone, Pietro, 112
Bertaucourt, Abbey of, 288
Blomefield's History of Norfolk,

158

Bonaventura, Brother, 98, 146

Bonaventura (Catherine of
Siena's sister), 181

Brehon Laws, 28, 49

Brendan, St, 34

Bridget of Sweden, St, 213

Brigid (goddess), 25, 48

Brigid of Ireland, St, 22 ; her
Christian and Pagan aspects,
25 ; characteristics of her
story, 26 ; her day, 27 ; her

Brigid of Ireland , St — continued
office, 28 ; her Lives, 29 ;
profession, 30 ; missionary
journeys, 31, 32 ; foundation
of Kildare monastery, 33 ;
importance as abbess, 33 ;
authority superseded that of
a Bishop, 34 ; her Rule, 35 ;
miracles, 35 ; love of nature,
36 ; as patroness of Commons,
37 ; as milkmaid, 37 ; con-
nexion with milk, 38 ; vision
of milk, 39 ; its explanation,
40 ; association with the
Virgin Mary, 41, 42 ; as
foster nurse of Jesus, 43 ;
legends connecting her with
Jesus, 44 ; death and burial,
45 ;" genealogy," 45 ; Pagan
aspect, 47 ; association with
the goddess Brigid, 48 ; em-
blem of fire, 50 ; title " of the
Candles," 51 ; perpetual fire,
52 ; the ritual on Bride's Eve,
53, 54 ; connexion with ser-
pent-worship, 55 ; mystical
aspect, 56

Brogan Cloen, St, 42

Brotseach (Brigid 's mother), 29,
38,50

C.SNOBITIC COMMUNITIES, 7

Candlemas (its association with
St Brigid), 51

Canticle of Brother Sun, 128, 129

Carmelite Order, origin, 230 ;
mitigation of its Rule, 231

Cashel, Synod of, 39

Catacombs, 8

Catherine of Siena, St, 34, 247,
271 ; expressed in images of
Blood and Fire, 175 ; in-
tensity keynote of her nature,

176 ; materials for her life,

177 ; the strife of her time,

178 ; vision when six years old,

1 80 ; marriage considered,

181 ; encloses herself, 182 ;
joins the Mantellate, 183 ;
austerities, 184 ; view of self-

INDEX

327

Catherine of Siena — continued
knowledge, 185 ; advocates
discretion in the use of penance ,
1 86 ; results of her asceticism,
187 ; is assailed by tempta-
tions, 188 ; difficulty in relat-
ing her mystical experiences,
189; Spiritual Marriage, 190,
191, 192 ; the Voice bids her
resume everyday life, 192 ;
spiritual family, 193 ; view
of friendship, 194 ; letter to
Stephen Maconi's mother, 195 ;
teaching concerning love, 196 ;
in the " Cell of Self- Know-
ledge," 197 ; and the Plague,
198 ; various activities, 199 ;
at the execution of Niccolo,
200, 20 1, 202 ; and the cor-
ruption of the Church, 204 ;
is persecuted, 205 ; political
ideals, 205 ; desire for a
Crusade, 206 ; letters to
Gregory XI., 207, 208 ; and
the League against the Pope,
209, 210 ; her " intolerable
grief," 211 ; mission from
Florence, 212 ; goes to Avig-
non, 212 ; interviews Pope,
213 ; induces Pope to return
to Rome, 214 ; meets Pope
at Genoa, 215 ; reconciles
Florence and Pope, 216 ; is
nearly slain, 216 ; tries to
restrain Urban's violence, 218 ;
arrives in Rome, 218 ; speaks
before Pope and Cardinals,
219 ; letters to the hermits,
220 ; death-agony, 221 ;
triumph, 222

Cesena, Massacre of, 210, 211
Charles V. of France, 206
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 146, 156, 157,

161, 162

Clare, St, 104, 113, 125, 140,
252,272, 312 ; character, 109 ;
official Life, no, 111 ; early
life, in ; meetings with
Francis, 114; flight, 115;
profession, 116 ; is pursued,
117; becomes abbess at St

Clare, St — continued

Damian's, 118, 119; and the
rose legend, 120 ; is enclosed,
121 ; advice to Francis con-
cerning the contemplative life,
122 ; hunger stake, 123 ;
penances, 124 ; breaks bread
with Francis, 126, 127 ;
nurses Francis, 128 ; de-
sires to see Francis before his
death, 130 ; sees him after
his death, 131 ; defence of
poverty, 132 ; the Bulls con-
firming her Rule, 133 ; founda-
tions, 133 ; her courage, 134 ;
rout of the " Saracens," 135 ;
last Christmas on earth, 136 ;
death-agony, 137 ; death, 138;
canonization, 139

Clement VII., 210, 218

Cogitosus of Kildare, 29

Colgan, Father John, 29

Columba, St, 27, 37, 42, 45

Comgall, St, 34

Conrad, Brother, 43

Cormac's Glossary, 48

Crashaw, Richard, 223

Cromm-Cruach (king-idol), 49

Cuhulain, 49

Cyra (recluse), 12, 13

Cyriacus, Lije of St, 15, 16

Cyril of Scythopolis, 15

DAGDA (god), 48

d'Andilly (Angelique's brother),

284, 286, 287, 291, 296, 298,

315, 317, 322
d'Andilly (Madame), 313
Daniel! a of Orvieto, Sister, 186
Dante, 108, 177
Dara, Sister, 36

Dark Night of the Soul, The, 261
de Cressy, Serenus, 161
de Grammont, Count, 276
Demonology, 7

de Saci (Angelique'snephew),284
de Sange, Count, 302
de Sericourt (Angelique's

nephew), 279
d'Estrees, Madame, 288, 289,

290, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304

328 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Dialogue (Catherine of Siena's),
J77. *&5> X86, 194, 196, 203,

211, 222

Dubhtach (Brigid's father), 29
Duns Scotus, 146

EALDHEI.M, 30

Ere (Bishop of Slane), 33

FINNEN, St, 34

Fioretti, 99, 112, 125

Flete, Brother William, of Eng-
land, 220

Flowing Light of God, The, 143

Form of Perfect Living, The, 152

Francis of Assisi, St, 109, no,
in, 115, 116, 117, 120, 123,
125, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138,
139, 140, 312 ; love of Poverty,
94 ; description of Poverty,
95 ; his songs in the French
tongue, 97 ; delight in natural
beauty, 98 et seq. ; love of
birds and beasts, 100, 101 ;
love of the elements, 101, 102 ;
practice of Poverty, 104 et seq. ;
teaching concerning alms, 105,
106 ; kissing of the leper, 107 ;
nuptials with Poverty, 108 ;
early actions, 112 ; appear-
ance, 112 ; humility, 113 ;
meetings with Clare, 1 14 ;
and the contemplative life,
121, 122 ; teaching concern-
ing penance, 124 ; breaks
bread with Clare, 126, 127 ;
is nursed by Clare, 128 ; his
songs for the Poor Ladies, 129 ;
message on his death -bed, 130

Francois de Sales, St, 293, 301

Frtquente Communion, De la,
275, 284

Froissart, 212

Fulbert, the Canon, 75, 78, 79,
80, 8 1

GABRIELLE, la Belle, 288, 289
Gelasius, Pope, 51
Genevieve, the Mere, 308
Giles, Brother, 121

Giovanni, Don, of Vallombrosa,

204

Giralclus Cambrensis, 51
Gratian, Father, 268, 269
Gregory IX., 105, 106, 123, 133
Gregory XI., 206, 207, 213, 214,

215, 216, 217

HELOI'SE, 59, 60, 61, 69, 71, 72,

73. 74. 77. 83. 90, 93. "7. Il8«
312 ; learning, 75 ; letters,
76 et seq. ; love story, 78 et
seq. ; bears a son, 8"o ; op-
poses idea of marriage with
Abelard, 80 ; marriage, 81 ;
becomes a nun, 8 1 ; profession,
82 ; becomes abbess of Para-
clete, 84 ; first letter, 84, 85,
86 ; second letter, 87 ; letters
on points of discipline, 88 ;
tomb at P6re la Chaise ceme-
tery, 92

Henrietta Maria of England, 320

Henry of London (Archbishop
of Dublin), 52

Henry IV. of France, 288, 289,
290, 299

Hilton, Walter, classifies music
of soul, 149 ; describes Angels'
Song, 150 ; on the danger of
visions, 153 ; possible author
of Imitation of Christ, 154

Imitation of Christ, 154
Incarnation, Convent of the, 230,

231, 243, 251, 263, 265, 267
Innocent II., 69
Innocent III., 95, 133
Innocent IV., 133, 137
Innocent X., 276
Interior Castle, The, 224, 240,

247, 249, 270

JACOMO DI BENINCASA, 179, 182
Jansen, Cornelius, 273, 274, 275,
276, 278, 318, 321

ioan, Queen of Naples, 206
ohn de Dalton, 147, 148
ohn of the Cross, St, 259, 260,
261, 262, 263, 267, 312
Journte du Guichet, 296

INDEX

329

Juliana, Dame, of Norwich, 141,
142, 144, 155, 196 ; freshness
of vision, 157 ; life, 158 ;
teaching that " Our Lord was
never wroth," 163 ; keystone
of her faith, 164 ; sickness,
164 ; visions of Christ's
Passion, 165 ; precision of de-
scription, 1 66 ; Revelations
repeated inwardly, 167 ; the
Agony revealed as " homely
loving," 168 ; sees " God in a
Point," 169 ; views concerning
" Unity of Substance," 170 ;
vision of " A'1-Thing as a ball,"
171 ; attitude towards the
problem of evil, 172 ; meaning
of the visions, 173 ; central
point of her teaching, 174

Juniper, Brother, 137, 138

KEATING'S History, 32

Kempe, Margery, of Lynn

(anchoress), 144
Kildare monastery, 33, 34, 35
Kirby, Margaret (anchoress), 152

LANGLAND, William, 162

Lapa (Catherine of Siena's

mother), 179, 183, 184
Legenda of Catherine of Siena,

177, 182, 191
Leinster, Book of, 49
Le Maistre, Catherine, 283, 291,

296
Le Maistre, Monsieur, 281, 282,

283, 284, 287, 316, 318
Leo, Brother, 96, 101, 103, 130,

132, 137, 138
Lettres Provinciates, 276, 277,

320
Little Flowers oj St Francis, 99,

112, 125

Lorenzo (Teresa's brother^,

270

Louis VII., 63
Louis XIV., 276, 321
Loyola, Ignatius, 250
Lupercalia, 51

MACCAILLE or MACCALEUS, 30,

31, 50

Maconi, Stephen, 194, 195, 212
Malachy III., Bishop of Down,

45

Malosso (painter), 22
Mandra, 12
Manegold of Alsace, 76
Manichaeans, 10
Mantellate, 183
Marana (recluse), 12, 13
Mariano, Father, 268, 269
Marie-Claire (Angelique's sister),

279, 300

Marie de Medicis, 307, 308
Mary Magdalene, 13, 15, 23
Mary of Egypt, St, u, 13, 15,
23, 26 ; at Alexandria, 13 ;
reference to, in Life of St
Cyriacus, 16 ; her cell, 16, 17 ;
Acts of, 15, 17 ; discovered by
Zosimus, 1 8 ; tells her story,
19 ; repentance and penance,
20; death, 21; relics, 22;
pictorial representations of,
22 ; " twice-born," 22
Masseo, Brother, 100, 112, 113,

I2T, 122

Maubuisson, Convent of, 288,
289, 290, 299, 300, 304, 306

Mechthild of Magdeburg, 143

Miracoli, 180

Mirror of Perfection, 96, 103,
104, 129, 131

Monophysites, 10

NERI DI LANDOCCIO PAGLIARESI,

194

Nestorius and Nestorians, 10, 67
Niccolo di Toldo, 200, 201, 202
Nominalists, 62
Nonnus, Bishop of Edessa, 13,

14. 15. 23

PACIFICO, Brother, 97
Paraclete, Abbey of the, 35, 83,

84, 86, 92

Pascal, Blaise, 276, 277, 287, 320
Pascal, Jacqueline, 318, 321
Patrick, St, 29, 33, 39, 40, 42, 45,

49

330 WOMEN OF CELL AND CLOISTER

Paul of Thebes, St, 9

Pelagia, St, 13, 14, 15, 23

Pelagius, 67, 273, 275

Penst'es, Pascal's, 287

Peter of Alcantara, St, 250, 252

Peter the Venerable, Abbot of
Cluny, 75, 91, 92

Petrarch, 212

Philip II. of Spain, 268

Piers Plowman, Vision of, 151,
162

Poor, Bishop, 158, 159, 160

Pope, Alexander, 72

Popes, Alexander IV., 139 ;
Clement VII., 210, 218 ;
Gelasius, 51 ; Gregory IX.,
105, 106, 123, 133 ; Gregory
XI., 206, 207, 213, 214, 215,
216, 217 ; Innocent II., 69 ;
Innocent III., 95, 133 ; In-
nocent IV., 133, 137 ; Inno-
cent X., 276 ; Urban VI., 217,
218, 219, 220

Port-Royal, 255, 271, 272, 277,
278, 279, 280, 282, 283, 286,
287, 290, 291, 292, 293, 298,
299, 300, 301, 304, 305, 307,
311, 312, 314, 315, 316, 320,
321, 322, 323

Priscillianists, 10

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
146, 162

Prologue to the Legend of Good
Women, 156

RACINE, Jean, 286, 320

Rainaldo, Brother, 137

Raymund of Capua, 177, 182,
184, 189, 192, 193, 197, 199,
200, 212, 213, 221

Realists, 62

Regula Heremitarum, 151

Revelations oj Divine Love, 157 ;
its heredity, 161 ; uncon-
cerned with historical pro-
blems, 162 ; unconcerned
with problems of enclosed
life, 163 ; examined, 164 et
seq.

Ribera, 22

Richard of St Victor, 146

Richelieu, Cardinal, 280, 281
Robert of Geneva, Cardinal
Count (afterwards Clement
VII.), 210, 218

Roderigo (Teresa's brother), 228
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 142,
154, 161 ; significance of his
story, 145 ; assumes guise of
hermit, 146 ; preaches in
Church, 147 ; experiences
color, canor, dulcor, 148 ; de-
scribes music of the soul, 149 ;
tries to found community, 151;
preaching, 152 ; death, 153
Rolle, William, 147
Romaunt of the Rose, The, 72

ST CYR, Abbey of, 290

Saint Cy ran, Abbot of, 274, 277,
278, 283, 292, 301, 305, 318,
321 ; he studies St Augustine
with Jansen, 273 ; view on
Jansen's work, 275 ; method
of direction, 279 ; teaching
concerning Prayer, 280 ; im-
prisonment, 281 ; converts,
281, 282 ; receives letter from
the " great " Arnauld, 285 ;
defends Secret Chaplet, 312 ;
director of Port-Royal, 312 ;
described by the Mere An-
gelique, 313 ; lasting influ-
ence and death, 314

St Damian (Church and Abbey),
112, 115, 118, 119, 126, 128,
130, 131, 135, 136, 139

St Denis, Abbey of, 66, 8 1, 84

St Dominic, Church of, 178, 184,
205

St George, Church of, at Assisi,
114, 119, 138

St Gildas, Abbey of, 77, 83, 84, 85

St John the Baptist, Church of,

2O, 22

St Joseph, Convent of, at Avila,
251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256,
266, 269, 270

St Mary of the Angels, or Little
Portion, Church and Abbey
of, 112, 114, 115, 119, 126,
127, 128, 136

INDEX

San Pietro-in-Pp, Church of, 21
Scale of Perfection, The, 154
Schism, the Great, 216, 217, 218
Secret Chaplet, The, 311, 312
Sens, Council of, 63, 91
Seventh Mansion, The, 239, 247
Sic et Non, 64, 89
Silvester, Brother, 122
Simeon Stylites, St, 1 1
Song of Angels, The, 149
Sophronius, St, 16
Spiritual Marriage, The, 190,

192, 247, 248
Symposium, 99

TEBALDESCHI, Cardinal, 217, 218
Teresa, St, 32, 34, 191, 271, 306,
312 ; Crashaw's description
of her, 223 ; power of analysis
and description, 224 ; modern
point of view, 225 ; passive
and active aspects, 226 ; home,
227 ; early life, 228 ; ap-
pearance, 229 ; becomes a
nun, 229 ; finds conventual
life too pleasure-loving, 231 ;
cannot wean herself from its
temptations, 232 ; speaks of
it as a " short cut to hell,"

233 ; " conversion," 234 ; alle-
gory of the Watered Garden,

234 et seq. ; First Degree of
Prayer, 235 ; Second and
Third Degrees of Prayer, 236 ;
Fourth Degree of Prayer, 237 ;
teaching concerning Prayer,
238 ; teaching concerning
works, 239 ; description of
Rapture, 240 ; description of
the " light of vision," 241 ;
confessors believe her under
a delusion, 242 ; visions the
talk of Avila, 243 ; test of
true and false visions, 244 ;
visions as related to her state
of health, 245 ; allegory of
The Interior Castle, 247 ; de-
scription of the Spiritual Mar-

Teresa, St — continued

riage, 248 ; outlook upon her
time, 249 ; origin of the Re-
form, 250 ; violent opposition
to Reform, 251 ; foundation
of St Joseph's, 252 ; Council
summoned to dissolve St
Joseph's, 253 ; returns to
St Joseph's, 254 ; life at St
Joseph's, 255 ; journeys and
other foundations, 256 ; foun-
dation at Medina del Campo,
257 ; difficulties and hard-
ships, 258 ; foundation for
friars at Durvelo, 259, 260 ;
counsels moderation to her
friars, 261 ; is nominated
Prioress of the Incarnation,
263 ; address to the nuns,
264 ; foundation at Seville,
265, 266 ; persecution of the
Mitigated Rule, 266 ; ex-
communication of nuns who
support Teresa, 267 ; disap-
proves her friars' Chapter, 268;
Rule established as a separate
Order, 269 ; combines Mary
and Martha, 270

Thomas a Kempis, 154

Thomas Caffarini, 204

Thomas of Celano, no, in, 113,
114, 119, 134, 135, 136, 139

Trent, Council of, 31, 268

Tripartite Life of St Patrick, 49

URBAN VI., 217, 218, 219, 220

WHITBY, Synod of, 33
Wyclif, 155, 156, 162
Wynkyn de Worde, 144

ZAMBT, Sebastien, 307, 308,

309, 310, 311, 312
Zosimus, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

AUTUMN 1918

METHUEN'S
POPULAR NOVELS

Crown 8vo, 6s. each
THE WAY OF AMBITION

By ROBERT HICHENS, Author of ' The Garden of Allah.'
This is a study of the effect produced in the life of an unambitious man
by an ambitious girl, afflicted with the uneasy desire for notoriety so
characteristic of the present time. The man is a composer of music, with
no love of general society and no wish to stand in the glare of a popular
fame. He cares only for his work, not for any rewards it might bring in.
The story shows his life before, and his life after, marriage, and the scene
is laid in London, near Algiers, and in New York.

THE JUDGMENT HOUSE

By Sir GILBERT PARKER, Author of ' The Seats of the

Mighty.'

Of all the books written by Sir Gilbert Parker, not excepting The Seats
of the Mighty, The Right of Way and The Weavers, his new novel, The
Judgment House, dealing with life in England at the time of the Jameson
Raid, and shifting to South Africa in the time of the war, shows most
powerfully his knowledge of the human heart and all those tragedies and
comedies of existence which lie far beneath the surface of experience.
With a greater knowledge, and an equally greater sympathy than he has
ever shown, he bares the truth of a woman's life, and strikes as poignant
a note as may be found in all modern literature. From the first page to
the last the book moves with a spirit, a dramatic interest, and an
arresting truthfulness greater than the author has evejr before shown.
There is one chapter in the book which contains a situation absolutely
new, and which would make the fortune of any play.

THE REGENT

By ARNOLD BENNETT, Author of ' Clayhanger.1
In his new novel Mr. Bennett brings Edward Henry Machin (the
familiar ' Card ' of the Five Towns) up to London on a rather adventurous
theatrical enterprise — he, in fact, builds and runs a theatre — and the
peculiar Five Towns temperament is thus displayed in full contrast with
the quite different temperament of artistic and social London. Both the
London and the provincial scenes are treated in the same vein of humorous
realism which distinguished Mr. Bennett's previous novel, The Card. Not
the least important among the feats of the hero is a flying trip to the
United States. At the end of the story, although Alderman Machin has
carried his enterprise to a most successful conclusion, and in a double
sense finds all London at his feet, he decides that for his own private
purposes the metropolis is an inferior place to the Five Towns — and acts
accordingly.

2 METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS

CHANGE

By JOSEPH CONRAD, Author of 'The Nigger of the
"Narcissus."'

THE GOVERNOR OF ENGLAND

By MARJORIE BOWEN, Author of ' I Will Maintain.'

The story opens in the fields outside St. Ives, where a gentleman farmer,
Oliver Cromwell, struggling with religious melancholy, becomes convinced
that he is to be raised up for God's work. The next chapters deal with
the dramatic prologue to the Civil War, the fall of the great Strafford
and his desertion by the King. Cromwell then steps forward to defy
Charles by demanding that the power of the sword be vested in the
Parliament, and the first part ends with the King raising the royal
standard at Nottingham. The second and third parts deal with the first
and second Civil War, ending with the death of the King. The fourth
part opens with the election of Cromwell as ' Governor of England ' and
closes with his death, on the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester.

THE GOLDEN BARRIER

By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, Authors of ' If Youth
but Knew.'

The main theme of this romance is the situation created by the marriage
— a marriage of love — of a comparatively poor man, proud, chivalrous
and tender, to a wealthy heiress : a girl of refined and generous instincts,
but something of a wayward ' spoilt child,' loving to use the power which
her fortune gives her to play the Lady Maecenas to a crowd of impecunious
flatterers, fortune hunters, and unrecognised geniuses. On a critical
occasion, thwarted in one of her mad schemes of patronage by her husband,
who tries to clear her society of these sycophants and parasites, she
petulantly taunts him with having been a poor man himself who, happily,
married money. Outraged in his love and pride, he offers her the choice
of coming to share his poverty or of living on, alone, amid her luxuries.
There begins a conflict of wills between these two, who remain in love
with each other — prolonged naturally, and embittered, by the efforts of
the interested hangers-on to keep the inconvenient husband out of Lady
Macenai house — but ending in a nappy surrender on both sides.

THE FLYING INN

By G. K. CHESTERTON.

THE WAY HOME

By the Author of 'The Wild Olive.'

This is the story, minutely and undei standingly told, of a sinner, his life
and death. He is an ordinary man and no hero, and the final issue raised
concerns the right of one who has persistently disregarded religion during
his strength in accepting its consolations when his end is near : a question
of interest to every one. The book, however, is not a tract, but a very
real novel.

METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS 3

THE MORNING'S WAR

By C. E. MONTAGUE, Author of ' A Hind Let Loose.1

The love story of a young Anglo-Irish man and woman, both of high
spirit, courage, and generosity. It opens with an exciting experience in
the Alps, and is carried on through many adventures, of the body or the
rrind, among the Surrey hills, in the Northern England of smoke and
moorland, and on the Western Irish coast, where the discovery of a
strange impediment to their union leads to new vicissitudes of peril and
hope that leave the issue still in the balance till the end of the last
chapter.

A NEW NOVEL

By 'Q' (Sir ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH), Author of
'The Mayor of Troy.'

BELOW STAIRS

By Mrs. A. SIDGWICK, Author of ' Lamnrna.'

This, as the title indicates, is a story of servant life. It follows the
fortunes of Priscilla Day, who begins as a little morning drudge and in
time becomes a trained parlour-maid. Her working experiences and her
love affairs are both kept in view, and the author tries to describe them
from the girl's standpoint, but without bias either for servants or against
them.

THE SEA CAPTAIN

By H. C. BAILEY, Author of ' The Lonely Queen.'
One of the great company of Elizabethan seamen is the hero of this
novel. There is, however, no attempt at glorifying him or his comrades.
Mr. Bailey has endeavoured to mingle realism with the romance of the
time. Captain Rymingtowne is presented as no crusader, but something
of a merchant, something of an adventurer, and a little of a pirate. He
has nothing to do with the familiar tales of the Spanish main and the
Indies. His voyages were to the Mediterranean when the Moorish
corsairs were at the height of their power, and of them and their great
leaders Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa and Dragut Reis the story has much to
tell. Captain Rymingtowne was concerned in the famous Moorish raid
to capture the most beautiful woman in Europe, and in the amazing affair
of the Christian prisoners at Alexandria. The author has tried to present
with historical truth many unfamiliar phases of the life of the time, in an
English countryside, on shipboard, and in the turbulent warfare of the
Mediterranean, but the book is essentially a story of adventure.

SANDY MARRIED

By DOROTHEA CONYERS, Author of ' Sally.'

This is a sequel to Mrs. Conyers' famous book, Straying* tf Sandy.
It tells of Sandy married, his life in Ireland, and the amusing complications
which arise when he is left guardian of two young and unsporting people,
Araminta and Hildebrand, who against their wishes have to keep a racing

4 METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS

stable and win the Grand National or marry before they can claim theii
uncle's large fortune. Sandy's keeping of their racing stud and hunters
and his final triumph in getting rid of his obnoxious charges makes the
plot of the book. ' Phillips," his valet, is as much to the fore as in the
Straying! of Sandy.

THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER

By PERCEVAL GIBBON, Author of 'Margaret Harding.'

The story from which this volume takes its title is that by which
Mr. Gibbon is best known. The book presents a representative selection
of the work of what Punch has called ' one of the best living short story
writers.'

THE REMINGTON SENTENCE

By W. PETT RIDGE, Author of ' Devoted Sparkes.1
In his new novel Mr. Pett Ridge describes the experiences of a family
brought up amid leisurely and easy surroundings in the country, and directed
to earn their living in town. The opening stages take place in Chalk
Farm, and the way that each of the Remingtons is affected by the
' sentence ' is told in Mr. Pett Ridge's happy and vivacious manner.

THE SUMMER LADY

By Mrs. GEORGE NORMAN, Author of ' Lady Fanny.'

This story tells how a rather friendless young man, returning from
Rhodesia, with money, takes a wooden hut for the summer upon the cliffs
he remembers as a child. There his solitude is romantically disturbed
by a Lady. Their acquaintance, somewhat unconventionally, ripens. She
is not, as he thought, unmarried, but the chatelaine of the manor house
owned by a quite elderly if charming man. The story of the younger
couple develops to a logical conclusion.

ONCE, OF THE ANGELS.

By EVELYN BEACON.

In this story, by a passionately sincere lover of purity, an appeal is made
for the better instruction of our daughters, that they may be the better
safeguarded against certain of the dangers of life. The subject is a
delicate one, but the author has brought to it devotion and conviction.

THE LITTLE NUGGET

By P. G. WODEHOUSE.

When Elmer Ford, the American millionaire, obtained his incom-
patibility-of-temperament divorce from Mrs. Elmer Ford, the court gave
him custody of Ogden, their twelve-year-old son, whom he proceeded
to place at a private school in England. H«w Ogden became the ' Little
Nugget,' the greatest prize open to members of the kidnapping profession,
the story proceeds to show.

METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS 5

THE TWO KISSES

By OLIVER ONIONS, Author of 'Good Boy Seldom.'
One of these kisses is given to Amory Towers, Bohemian and artist, the
other was given by her. In a former novel the author depicted the life of
the cheaper siudios as it is lived by men ; here he treats of that life as a
woman-artist experiences it. The position of women in the Arts to-day
receives some consideration in the book, and, parallel with that of Amory
herself, there runs the story of her friend, studio companion and fellow-
student at the McGrath School of Art. The Two Kisses may be described
as a comedy, and contains the history of a very modern courtship indeed.

TIDE MARKS

By MARGARET WESTRUP (Mrs. W. Sydney Stacey),

Author of ' Elizabeth in Retreat.'

Yet another of the many recent novels which have Cornwall for a
background. The heroine is the child of a gipsy mother and an ascetic
poet, and the theme of the story is the wilful avoidance of love by this
girl.

THE ROMANCE OF A FEW DAYS

By PUTNAM WEALE, Author of ' The Revolt.'

This story treats of the subtle adventures of a young Englishman,
Richard Faulconbridge, in the strangely fascinating city of Moscow, where
the medisevalism of the Kremlin is contrasted with a wildly modern note,
probably unequalled elsewhere in Europe. A broad vein of romance runs
through these stirring pages. The figure of a Polish girl forms a tantalis-
ing and captivating element, and in her company are a number of others
who serve to throw into relief the curious plot of the book.

MAN AND WOMAN

By L. G. MOBERLY.

This story, which is based upon Tennyson's lines —

"The woman's cause is man's, they rise or fall together" —
has for its chief character a woman who takes the feminist view that man
is the enemy; a view from which she is ultimately converted. Another
prominent character is one whose love is given to a weak man, her axiom
being that love takes no heed of the worthiness or unworthiness of its
object. The scene is laid partly in London, partly in a country cottage,
and partly in India during the Durbar of the King-Emperor.

WHAT IS LOVE ?

By DAVID LISLE, Author of 'A Painter of Souls,' 'A

Kingdom Divided.'

Mr. Lisle's new novel may be regarded as a sequel to his successful
Painter of Souls, since the heroine of What is Love? is the daughter of
Miles Bering and Violet Hilliard. In this book we find brilliant and
daringly intimate descriptions of theatre-life in Paris. A famous French
actress is the friend and patron of Isola Bering, and Mr. Lisle displays
remarkable knowledge of behind-the-scenes life on the Paris stage in
his delineation of ' La Belle Geroine's ' character and career.

6 METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS

THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU

By SAX ROHMER.

The epic of the most resourceful, brilliant and sinister malefactor
yet created. Through River Police depots, an opium den in Shadwell,
great hotels, the Arabian Nights abode of the Chinese doctor, the float-
ing laboratory on the lower Thames, the family vault of Lo»d Southery,
and many another scene, we follow the dark elusive figure of the terrible
Fu-Manchu, 'lord of strange deaths.' In the dim background flit ever
the companion figures of his creatures, the stranglers. Above all rises
the call of the dacoit : whilst through the yellow phantasmagoria glides
a seductive personality, ' Karamaneh, the lovely Eastern slave who plays
such havoc with the heart of Dr. Petrie.

SWIRLING WATERS

By MAX RITTENBERG, Author of ' The Mind-Reader.'

This is a story of the whirlpool of finance. Clifford Matheson, a
successful financier, is soul-weary of the life, and tries to cut loose and
start a fresh existence. He is drawn back to the whirlpool by an en-
tanglement in a huge scheme engineered by a millionaire shipowner
(a vivid study of the Napoleonic temperament) ; and Matheson's wife and
the girl he falls in love with in his second existence contend for him.
The book starts with a dramatic conflict between Matheson and the
shipowner, and continues in the atmosphere of tension right to the end.

THE GATE OF HORN

By BEULAH MARIE Dix.

It is through the Gate of Horn that true dreams come, and they were
true dreams that came to Sydney Considine. Through her chil.Ihood and
her girlhood she has known in her dreams places and people that were
unfamiliar to her waking hours. In early womanhood she left her
American home for a visit in Cornwall, and there she found the scene
of her dream life, and met the man who had shared it with her. The
rest of the story tells how they made reality of unreality.

THE LODGER

By Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES.

In her new long novel, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes shows the same mastery of
the art of thrilling that she showed both in The Chink in the Armour^ and
in her short stories Studies in Love and in Terror. The Lodger suggests
a solution of the most dreadful and baffling of all the unsolved murder
mysteries in English criminal annals, but the story is relieved by humour,
observation of human nature, and a pretty love interest.

METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS 7

SHALLOWS

By FREDERICK WATSON.

There is an episode in Jacobite history that has probably never been
treated in fiction, and was only known within recent years through the
brilliant research of Mr. Andrew Lang. The Elibank plot and the tragedy
of Archibald Cameron lay ready to the novelist's hand, and it has remained
for Mr. Frederick Watson, a son of Ian Maclaren, to set this sombre
background to a study of character. In Ethlenn Murdoch the mystery
of inevitable misfortune is played, and the linking of her fate and that
of Charles Edward Stewart is accomplished. The story is full of incident,
bieaks new ground, and is charged with the atmosphere of twilight, the
time of shadows and falling darkness.

THAT WHICH WAS WRITTEN

By SYBIL CORMACK SMITH.

This story, the work of one of the increasing band of South African
writers, is written round the secret tragedy of a woman's life, the action
of fate in revealing that secret, and the ultimate triumph of love in
disregarding the revelation. In the vivid, romantic setting of
the veld, strong situations and characters are evolved, and the climax
is reached when two men come to grips in the fight for a woman's
soul.

MISS NOBODY

By ETHEL CARNIE, Author of 'Songs of a Factory Girl.'

A story of modern working class life, laid partly in Manchester city and
partly in a green country place skirting its greyness. The heroine, with no
heritage but that of grit, grace, and gumption, marries to escape a life of
drudgery She finds that struggle and pain dwell also in the country.
The scorn of the country- people drives her back, alone, to her own place.
Passing through many phases, meeting many people, she learns all the
sweetness and bitterness of playing a lone hand.

STEMPENYU

By SHALOM ALEICHEM. Translated from the Yiddish
by HANNAH BERMAN.

The hero of this very curious Jewish romance is a wandering musician
of many romantic adventures, who was caught, as in a trap, by a woman
with whom he has nothing in common. Too late, he meets his affinity
in the pure young girl, Rachel. The pen pictures of the quaint village
folks are illumined by countless flashes of humour. A vein of tenderness
and pity for Stempenyu no less than for Rachel runs through the
book ; and over all hovers the spirit of geniality and kindliness. Its
profound sincerity, its keen insight, and its accurate characterisation lift
the book far above the common placeness and banalities of the average
novel.

8 METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS

THE WHITE THREAD

By ROBERT HALIFAX, Author of ' A Whistling Woman.'

A book which is practically certain to arrest a serious consideration,
both lay and medical. Tilly Westaway herself — the lovable, human little
heroine with her secret maternal longings and her desire to ' put every-
thing right for everybody* — makes a curiously moving appeal all the way.
But it is the vast shadow in the background — the menace of the ever-
absorbing, ever-expanding lunatic asylum ward — which will remain in
one's mind long after the book is laid down. If Robert Halifax has not
struck here an entirely new note in fiction, it may well be that, in view
of a 'Mental Deficients" Bill now before the country, he I/as struck one
that will be heard far and wide.

LOVE'S APPRENTICESHIP

By MABEL SPRENT.

The story of a little wild bush girl, and how she hears the mysterious
voices of the great world calling to her. She leaves the solitude of her
home in the wilderness and, driven by a hitherto starved passion for
worldly experience, joins recklessly in the chase after sensation and
pleasure. The story concerns itself with the action and reactions between
sophisticated life, conventional adventure, and a natural young person who
grew to womanhood without knowledge of these things.

A GODDESS OF STONE

By R. W. WRIGHT HENDERSON, Author of 'John
Goodchild.'

The scene of this romance is on the south coast, and the date of it is
1793, in the brave days of smuggling and rumours of invasion. It is told
in the first person, being the recollection of events witnessed by one
Thomas How when an innocent boy of eight. A miser, some smugglers,
an emigre, an old housekeeper, and others are those whose fortunes he,
and a marble statue, silently watch, and in part direct.

KNOGKINSCREEN DAYS

By JACKSON C. CLARK. With 4 Illustrations by A. E.

HORNE.

In this story Mr. ' Peter ' Carmichel, who lives near the Ulster village
of Knockinscreen, relates humorously the circumstances attending the
arrival of an erratic friend and their somewhat unusual methods of
canvassing in the election of the Ballyraffin dispensary doctor, which
involve the discomfiture of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The assistance
of a local blacksmith is requisitioned at the eleventh hour, and in the
concluding chapters he narrates the result of his electioneering efforts.
There are incidental descriptions of a local football match contested on
Homeric lines and the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Jimmy M'Gaw,
a manservant with original ideas, enlivens things more than a little.

University of California Library
Los Angeles

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

Phond Rsnewali
310/1325-9188

HAY

~

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBRARY FACILITY

A 000 675 836 1