2. Hilda of Whitby and Medieval Nuns and Abbesses
2
Hilda of Whitby and Medieval Nuns and Abbesses
Paris. Perhaps the most romantic and most written-about city in the world. Like many Americans I have memories. Perfect sunny summer weather. Shady boulevards. Notre-Dame. Mona Lisa. Eiffel Tower. Champs-Élysées. Arc de Triomphe. Nightfall on the Seine. The list goes on. We saw it all.
It was a last-minute Paris-on-the-cheap stop on our way home from Kijabe, Kenya, where I had been teaching. A nice little family holiday. But we were poor back then, and a two-star high-rise hotel and two days of hurried walking were all we could afford. Pinching pennies, we stopped for a quick lunch at a café only to be charged extra for butter. Imagine that. When we complained, the condescending waiter responded in French, leaving the impression that he didn’t appreciate Americans.
Lying on a park bench at midnight is also filed in my memory bank. Backache so severe I was sure I couldn’t walk the dozen blocks and up the stairs to our shabby quarters—no fire escape. I dreamed that night that we were trapped in the flames on the twelfth floor.
When I contemplate my mixed emotions and memories of that city, I am reminded that Paris is as shabby as it is chic and known for revolution and riots as much as for high fashion and culture. Crime and conspiracy fill the pages of its history alongside the high academic scholarship of the Sorbonne. So also in the twelfth century. Paris is where romance blossoms, even while terror and violence are lurking outside locked doors.
Abelard, one of the most celebrated teachers and philosophers of the medieval world, is tutoring Héloïse, his gifted and drop-dead-gorgeous pupil. What follows has all the earmarks of a twenty-first-century tabloid cover story. Romance, lust, exploitation, pregnancy, intrigue, violence—and religion—all filtered through the curtain of the medieval church. In the words of Henry Adams, “The twelfth century, with all its sparkle, would be dull without Abelard and Héloïse.”1
Though often overlooked as a tabloid story, the relationship between Clare and Francis is also intriguing. That their names are prefaced by saint, however, places them in a different realm. But the story is similar: the lovely teenage Clare sneaks out in the dead of night to meet Francis, who, like Abelard, had been a popular singer—a dashing troubadour.
The stories of Héloïse and Clare begin as fairy tales more than tabloid exposés. If not actually princesses, both are beautiful, young, and wealthy. Abelard and Francis each play the role of Prince Charming, luring the maiden away from the castle. Clare even gets her long, flowing hair shorn. How fairy tale is that! But this is where any resemblance ends. Cloistered nuns simply don’t fit the script except that Clare seems to live happily ever after. Not so Héloïse.
Many medieval women who devoted their lives to monastic ministry had a noble heritage. Growing up in a castle, if not a convent, was almost a requisite, and the decision to enter the convent was often made when they were very young. Hilda of Whitby and Lioba, both celebrated abbesses, rose from the ranks of English nobility; Hrotsvitha, a playwright and poet, from the ranks of German nobility.
We sometimes assume these saints are too good to be true, as their biographers, aka hagiographers, would lead us to believe. But scratch the surface and we find real women to whom we can relate.
HILDA OF WHITBY
Celebrated Snake-Stone Abbess
We would know virtually nothing about Hilda but for the seventh-century monk Bede, who wrote a history of the English nation and is credited as the first English historian. He praises her holy life and ministry that was foretold by a dream.
All who knew Hild, the handmaiden of Christ and abbess, used to call her mother because of her outstanding devotion and grace. She was not only an example of holy life to all who were in the monastery but she also provided an opportunity for salvation and repentance to many who lived far away and who heard the happy story of her industry and virtue. This was bound to happen in fulfillment of the dream which her mother Breguswith had during the child’s infancy. While her husband Hereric was living in exile under the British king Cerdic, where he was poisoned, Breguswith had a dream that he was suddenly taken away, and though she searched most earnestly for him, no trace of him could be found anywhere. But suddenly, in the midst of her search, she found a most precious necklace under her garment and, as she gazed closely at it, it seemed to spread such a blaze of light that it filled all Britain with its gracious splendour. This dream was truly fulfilled in her daughter Hild; for her life was an example of the works of light, blessed not only to herself but to many who desired to live uprightly.2
Born in a castle in Northumberland in 614, she was reared in King Edwin’s palace, her father having been poisoned by a political opponent. Later the king was baptized a Christian as were all those living in his court, including the then thirteen-year-old Hilda. For two decades her trail goes cold; then we learn that she had accepted an appointment from her bishop to serve as a nun and later an abbess. In 657, she was transferred to a monastery at Whitby, where she continued to practice Celtic monasticism, known among other things for its practice of housing monks and nuns in small cottages.
There she ruled over a double monastery of separately housed women and men, five of whom would later become bishops. Emphasizing Bible study and good deeds, she was a public servant though not likely wielding great political power. Nor did she, as some have claimed, call for the convening of the Synod of Whitby, though it was apparently held at her monastery. That synod was as political as it was ecclesiastical, and it brought the Celtic church under the control of Rome. Her role may have been little more than that of hostess. Had she actually wielded power, she might have moved the decisions of the synod in a different direction. In fact, loyal as she was to the Celtic church, it is entirely possible that she was very disappointed by the outcome.
There is no reason to doubt that Hilda was an energetic administrator and competent educator. Indeed, Whitby became known as a great center for learning under her leadership. She was quick to recognize the gifts of others, including Caedmon, whom later scholars would claim to be the first English poet. Although he was a mere herdsman on her monastic estate, Hilda recognized his talent and invited him to become a monk. Alongside the psalms and the Song of Songs, his only existing hymn is weak and unimaginative, but his influence on the development of the English language is widely recognized. Of him Bede wrote:
There was in the Monastery of this Abbess [Hilda] a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven.3
It is surely an exaggerated claim that Hilda, by recognizing Caedmon, “came close to inventing English literature.” Hardly. But she served as a most competent abbess and is the heroine of the delightful serpent legend of the ammolite stones. These “snake stones” are observed today in the region. Apart from a grand miracle, their origin is a mystery. As the story goes, Hilda and her nuns were preparing to clear land to construct an abbey. The completion of the work, however, was in jeopardy due to a most exasperating infestation of snakes. It might have been spiders, but snakes were bad enough. Hilda to the rescue. In a striking demonstration of power, she confronted the hideous serpents and turned every one into a stone. (If only Eve might have been so audacious!)
Despite a serious illness during the final six years of her life, Hilda founded one more monastery some fourteen miles away at Hackness. On the day she died (November 17, 680), it was reported that the bells there mysteriously began to ring.
LIOBA
Evangelist and Miracle Worker
Described as “a great model of Christian perfection,” Lioba grew up in the early eighth century in a monastery in the English countryside and would later become a noted missionary abbess in the heavily forested and sparsely populated region of Bavaria. Boniface, her bishop, regarded her highly and addressed her in later years as “the reverend handmaid in Christ.”4
Her birth was prefaced by a dream. When her elderly mother, said to be of noble heritage, unexpectedly became pregnant, a voice revealed that the child she was carrying was God’s anointed servant. In a relationship reminiscent of Hannah and Samuel, she trained her young daughter in acts of piety and then turned her over to Mother Tetta, abbess of the Benedictine convent of Winburn.
Here there was no time for leisure. Menial labor was interrupted only by strict hours of study, prayer, and daily rituals. Indeed, there was no childhood for this little girl, who might have easily wondered if she had been abandoned or orphaned. But she was not alone. She had companions whose situations were similar. Did she whisper at night and tell stories and secrets? Did she miss her mother and father and all those she had to leave behind? Did she shiver alone in the dark to the sound of the howling wind? Did she stifle romantic and maternal longings? We unconsciously imagine that these little saints in the making were devoid of emotions and as hardened as Hilda’s snake stones.
Life outside the eighth-century convent was anything but idyllic. Villages were surrounded by small fields and dense forests where superstition smoldered under dank carpets of moss. Monsters were as real as the roving militias and prowling wolves. Mud-daubed wooden huts with thatched roofs were a summer breeding ground for insects; in winter they turned into smoke-filled dens. Scourges of every sort curbed fertility and family size. Even in the smallest village, it seems that someone was always dying. Every household, whether of noble or peasant stock, took its turn.
But the times were not entirely grim. There were feasts and festivals and games, often accompanied by loud, ribald laughter. There was teasing and romance and fighting and family togetherness that pushed one day into the next, while the rhythms of the seasons flowed into years and decades. In the convent, time almost stood still amid the silence except for the books and the daily cadence of the Benedictine rule.
The most overarching aspect of Lioba’s youth in the convent was separation from the world. Her biographer describes the complex as being “surrounded by strong and lofty walls” where “no entrance should be allowed to a person of the other sex . . . except in the case of priests who had to celebrate Mass.”5 The description is that of a self-imposed imprisonment: “Any woman who wished to renounce the world and enter the cloister did so on the understanding that she would never leave it.”6 The world was outside the high walls where only fantasies took flight.
But for Lioba any fantasies would have been trumped by a real world of aging parents. In her early twenties, she expressed concern for her widowed mother in a letter to Boniface. A relative who had known her parents, he was not under the tight monastic restrictions placed on her. “I ask you also to remember my mother Aebbe,” she pleaded. “She is still alive but suffers from ill health and for many years now has been afflicted with infirmity.” Lioba perceived him as a brother, “for there is no other man in my family in whom I can put my trust as I can in you.”7
Whether Boniface cared for her mother is not revealed. His real interest had been in Lioba herself. She had years earlier sent him a short sacred verse written to “exercise [her] budding talents” and expressed her desire to serve God. He remembered her when he was appealing for missionaries to serve with him in Germany. Unable to turn down the proposal, she followed his call (and the call of God) to this desolate backwoods region where she served as an abbess, training nuns and commissioning them to form new communities.
Besides her administrative and charitable service, Lioba was by reputation an evangelist and miracle worker. In one spectacular incident, she calmed a raging storm. As a ruling abbess, she acted forcefully, unlike decades earlier when she had written to Boniface of her “lowly self” as the “lowest servant of those who bear the sweet yoke of Christ.” She rose up “as if she had been challenged to a contest, flung off the cloak which she was wearing and boldly opened the doors of the church.” With the sign of the cross, she stretched her hands to heaven praying to God through the Virgin Mary. At her command, the thunderclouds disappeared, giving way to sunshine.8
Another miracle credited to her may have had sinister implications. Even before her German mission had begun, she had learned from Boniface that there were grave dangers, including the persistent “seduction of nuns.”
The miracle involved healing the nun Williswind, a woman “of excellent character and edifying conduct.” The report is that she was “attacked” by hemorrhoids, causing “loss of blood from her privy parts” and “severe pains of the bowel.” Indeed, so serious was this “grave illness” that “her strength ebbed away,” and she could barely get out of bed. Her condition worsened to the point that she was taken to her nearby family home to die. In the end Lioba was called in for last rites. Williswind was “already enveloped in a linen cloth, as corpses usually were.” Lioba healed her, and Williswind carried on her ministry at the convent.9
But what, we might ask, apart from childbirth, could have caused such a severe affliction? Was she one of the many nuns who was raped? Did she nearly lose her life due to a violent sexual assault? It is not difficult to imagine a vicious barbarian, hormones raging, dragging her into the tangled forest and brutalizing her almost to the point of death. All that is left of her psyche is shame and pain. Among her healing miracles, Lioba is also reported to have healed reputations. Any medieval nun who had been sexually assaulted would have needed healing: body, soul—and reputation.
A Woman Who Loved Too Much
Strong willed and highly educated, Héloïse speaks as a modern woman with whom we can easily identify. The Hollywood film version of her life, Stealing Heaven (1988), does not do justice to her multilayered personality. She was far more than a pretty face. But that she fell in love with Peter Abelard, the twelfth century’s most astute and debonair scholar, only adds to her allure.
Unlike many educated medieval scholars who feigned humility, Abelard was as arrogant as he was articulate and good-looking. Students flocked to him, not only for his incisive reasoning and logic but also for his style. He was bold and brazen and dared them to think for themselves and question what other teachers were telling them. His attraction extended to the ladies as well. Héloïse later reminded him: “You left many love-songs and verses which won wide popularity for the charm of their words and tunes and kept your name continually on everyone’s lips.” He might be considered the Neil Diamond of his day, and his work made even his lover famous: “Your many songs put your Héloïse on everyone’s lips, so that every street and house echoed with my name.”10
She was still in her teens when their paths had crossed. Her brilliance was as appealing as her beauty. So spellbound was Abelard that he sought out her guardian, her uncle Fulbert, and offered to serve as her tutor, with an ulterior motive, as he later confessed: “I . . . decided she was the one to bring to my bed, confident that I should have an easy success.” Why? “I had youth and exceptional good looks as well as my great reputation to recommend me.” Héloïse would be putty in his hands: “Knowing the girl’s knowledge and love of letters, I thought she would be all the more ready to consent.”
As planned, soon there was “more kissing than teaching.” They were silly in love. Rumors spread. He wrote songs. She swooned. Word was all over Paris. Everyone knew—except for Fulbert. Was he in denial or simply out of the loop? He was a cleric at the cathedral of Paris. He would find out soon enough. “No stage of love making [was left] untried.” Héloïse became pregnant.
Fulbert was furious. He had been made the fool. Utterly humiliated. Abelard made an awkward attempt at amends. Yes, he would marry her, but the nuptials must be kept secret so as not to risk his reputation. Fulbert fumed. That lying weasel! Héloïse was whisked away to relatives. The baby was born. At the bidding of Abelard, she entered a convent. Now Fulbert was absolutely livid. It was his move. He retained two thugs. They entered Abelard’s apartment in the dark of night. Confusion, terror, panic, excruciating pain. Abelard knew exactly what was happening. “They cut off the parts of my body whereby I had committed the wrong.”
A remorseful Abelard entered the Abbey of Saint-Denis. After a time he resumed his lectures. Again students flocked to hear him. But church authorities were not impressed. He was accused of heresy. All the while he was deliberately out of touch with the mother of his child.
After more than a decade, Héloïse learned of Abelard’s whereabouts. In a haunting letter she implored him: “Tell me one thing, if you can. Why . . . have I been so neglected and forgotten by you? . . . You are bound to me by an obligation which is all the greater for the further close tie of the marriage sacrament.”
Why, why, why would he treat her so meanly, she wondered, pointing out to him, “particularly now when I have carried out all your orders so implicitly that when I was powerless to oppose you in anything, I found strength at your command to destroy myself.” Here she reminded him that she had entered the convent for one reason alone: her love for him. She had destroyed herself for him. There was no joy in pretending to serve God. The other nuns “do not know the hypocrite I am.” She went through the motions, but her heart was not in it. “Of all the wretched women, I am the most wretched, and amongst the unhappy I am the unhappiest.”
It is difficult to fit this long chapter of her life into a contemporary setting. Where besides prison could a woman be so trapped as Héloïse was? Today any woman who takes a vow can walk away into secular life. I know women who have done just that. Some—like Betty, now with children and grandchildren—continue to be active in the church. For Héloïse, however, options were extremely limited. How we might wish she could have simply abandoned the convent and returned to Paris to start a day school for girls, escaping the painful circumstances that were contaminating her soul.
There at the monastery for years on end, she was obsessed with Abelard. “Lewd visions,” she confessed, “take such a hold upon my unhappy soul.” And this even while the Mass was celebrated. “Everything we did and also the times and places are stamped on my heart along with your image, so that I live through it all again with you. Even in sleep I know no respite. Sometimes my thoughts are betrayed in a movement of my body, or they break out in an unguarded word.”
She was a brilliant woman stripped of her dignity. What a pity that her legacy is largely a very sad love story. She would carry on for decades as a prioress at the Paraclete, a monastery established by Abelard himself, and she would be praised by church leaders. But in some sense she was ruined. Even her son was reared by others, though she apparently looked after him from a distance. Peter the Venerable, one of her admirers, responded to her request: “I will gladly do my best to obtain a prebend [stipend] in one of the great churches for your Astrolabe, who is also ours for your sake.”
She had written to Abelard, “[I] would have had no hesitation, God knows, in following you or going ahead at your bidding to the flames of Hell.” There is no indication that she ever renounced those words. She did, however, later resume correspondence with him, convincing him to interact with her on theological matters. But the love that she so longed for was not forthcoming. There was never closure for her—unless his death and burial at her convent eventually brought her solace. Here is how I years ago concluded an article on this fascinating duo:
Legend tells us that when Heloise died, Abelard’s grave was opened so she could be buried with him, and as they lowered her body, he opened his arms to draw her into his bosom. It is a touching climax, but not one that fits. For Heloise and Abelard, life was real. There was no place for sentimental legends.11
CLARE OF ASSISI
Kidnapped Teen, Canonized Saint
Just when it seems it would be impossible to surpass the story of Héloïse for sheer suspense and sex appeal, here comes Clare of Assisi (1194–1253). At first glance she is little more than one more medieval holy woman canonized a saint for a perfect life. But in many ways her story is every bit as fascinating as that of Héloïse, whose name seems incomplete unless paired with Abelard. So also Clare and Francis.
With the election of Pope Francis in 2013, there has been great interest in the original St. Francis of Assisi. Most people know him primarily as a garden statue who loves animals. He is surely more than that. After founding his order of preaching mendicant friars, he granted Clare’s wish and permitted her to establish a monastic order for women. His motivation for ministry was simple: “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” This timeless maxim, though, did not apply to Clare’s Poor Ladies, who were cloistered behind high walls.
In my church history courses, I used to include a little aside on St. Francis. He was married, I would tell my students. That always piqued their interest. He, by his own account, was married to “a fairer bride than any of you have ever seen.” She was the absolute love of his life, and he remained faithful to the very end. As a husband he had no equal. Her name? Not Clare. Certainly not. Her name was Lady Poverty.
And without suggesting any sort of scandalous trio, it is fair to say that Clare was married to him and to her as well. Her absolute commitment to poverty and to Francis is what most differentiates Clare and her sisters from other medieval nuns. And Francis was committed to her in a romance that may have been more than merely a spiritual love.
Today there are some twenty thousand Poor Clares worldwide, though not necessarily following the same precise rules. Some are strictly cloistered in full habit; others seem to be pushing the envelope, as is true of the Poor Clares living on Shattuck Road in Saginaw, Michigan. Their website shows them in street clothes (including pants) working in the garden and interacting with one another. They sponsor a gift store selling items they make, including pet sympathy cards, most appropriate considering St. Francis and his love for animals.
It’s been eight hundred years since the days of Clare herself, and not surprisingly the life of a nun has changed, as I learned when I spoke with one of the Saginaw sisters. They still consider themselves to be cloistered, not serving in the outside world as most nuns do. They do leave the monastery, however, for occasional retreats and family funerals. Likewise their code of silence is more lax, evidenced by this nun’s willingness to chat with me briefly by phone. When I asked about the less restrictive lifestyle, she was quick to explain that in today’s heterogeneous society it is necessary to go out occasionally and speak to groups explaining who they are.
Although committed to poverty, Clare’s purpose in establishing a religious order was prayer. The Poor Clares were contemplatives who spent much of their day in meditation. But it is the matter of poverty that truly set them apart. Her fasting rule was strict. She and her sisters were expected to eat only once a day except for Sunday and Christmas and then no meat, eggs, or dairy products—a vegan diet. They lived on alms, but unlike the Franciscan friars, who begged for funds as they conducted ministry, Clare and her sisters never went outside the walls to beg. In fact, they were never to speak to outsiders, and talking among themselves was severely restricted. They rose to pray in silence in the middle of the night and again at dawn. A priest performed the daily Mass within hearing but out of sight.
The Saginaw Poor Clares welcome online prayer requests. For Clare supplication was an aspect of prayer, but her emphasis was contemplation, particularly meditating on every aspect of the life of Christ: his birth, his public ministry, his death, and his resurrected glory. Any spiritual oneness with Francis would have been trumped by Jesus, her true husband and lover:
Draw me after you, heavenly Spouse, we
shall run in the fragrance of your perfumes!
I shall run and not grow weary until you
bring me into the wine cellar
until your left hand is under my head
and your right arm blissfully embraces me;
and you kiss me with the most blissful kiss of your mouth.12
Who would have thought that Clare would fashion such an erotic prayer? But how else, apart from such fantasy, could she and her sisters endure an almost impossible cloistered lifestyle devoted to prayer and poverty?
Clare, like Francis, hailed from Assisi. Today the town is a pilgrimage destination for those who wish to feel the presence of Francis in the cobblestones and cathedrals. When Clare was a young girl, she may have daydreamed about the dashing young man a dozen years her senior. “Francis was one of those people who are popular with everybody,” writes G. K. Chesterton, “and his guileless swagger as a Troubadour and leader of French fashions made him a sort of romantic ringleader among the young men of the town.”13
He was without a doubt the pop star of the day. But that was before his conversion.
Growing up in this walled Roman town of Assisi in the upper Tiber valley, Clare enjoyed the luxuries and social graces of the nobility: high fashion, priceless art and home furnishings, sumptuous feasts and extravagant entertainment. No surprise, she lived in a castle. Besides her wealth, she was considered a local beauty. Before she reached her late teens, she was betrothed to a man of the same social standing, a planned marriage she would rebuff, having come under the spell of Francis.
Clare was not your typical high-class rich girl. Prayer appealed to her more than parties. And then she became enthralled with Francis. He had come back to town as an evangelist calling for the rebuilding of God’s house, badly in need of repair. In fact, he stole from his own father’s lucrative textile business to pay for the work. When his father hauled him before the local bishop, Francis stripped naked and committed himself to God and a life of poverty. Soon after he stole again—this time, the heart of Clare. They talked together and fell in love.
Perhaps the term fall in love is less than accurate. But they did develop a bond of love that is rarely surpassed. A spiritual love, most devotees insist, but it was likely more than that. She was a fair, nubile young maiden aglow in all her virgin loveliness; he, in his late twenties, hormones fully operational and easily fired up. There surely must have been sexual longings. But the poverty Francis preached required a repression of all such desires.
Yet their relationship had all the ingredients of a burgeoning romance. For months they conversed through clandestine rendezvous, going over every detail of his plans for her ultimate escape. After that, who knew what would happen? In formulating a plan for her celibate life of poverty beyond the city walls, Francis was flying by the seat of his pants. He was not known for caution, and his first priority was to rescue her. The family castle was in plain sight next door to the cathedral, the windows looking out onto Piazza San Rufino. Stealth was the key. Francis set the scheme in motion. On the day appointed, his comrades arrived in the dead of night.
Clare escaped through a window and under a breach in the wall. The first stop on this underground railroad was a makeshift forest chapel where Francis and his followers were holed up. Here before an altar to the Blessed Virgin, Francis ceremoniously sheered her of her long flowing hair, and then gave her his own coarse robe to wear instead of her fine gown and cloak. He then escorted her to a Benedictine convent for temporary lodging.
Whether the audacious deed is deemed an elopement or outright kidnapping depends on perspective. Today a teenage girl whisked away in the dark of night at the bidding of a cult leader twelve years her senior would be considered a kidnap victim. And so she was back then. But Francis had factored that into the equation. Church law trumped local law. So when the posse arrived to forcibly return her to her family, she clung to the altar as a safe haven. Indeed, so tenaciously did she hang onto the railing that her clothes were torn in the melee and her shorn head was exposed—proof positive that she had given her life to God.
The family realized they had met their match in Francis—and God. And no medieval nobleman would deny the incredible clout of the Catholic Church. Nor was the contest over, surely not for Francis and his uncommon power of persuasion. Soon Clare’s younger sister joined her, as did her mother. The stay at the Benedictine monastery was brief, and within months they moved to their own quarters next to the church of Saint Damiano. Here, joined by other women, Clare lived in seclusion until the end of her life.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
As we look back on these women in our Christian heritage, we are confronted by stark opposites. Life in general and human nature in particular during medieval times were both radically different from and amazingly similar to life in the twenty-first century. How do we compare and contrast our own situations and psyches with theirs? And who are we? Dare I assume we are all North American middle-class women as I am?
The similarities are significant. Although some historians insist that romantic love was not invented until after the Enlightenment, we see a serious case of romance and heartbreak with Héloïse and Abelard, every bit as intense as was Jacob’s love for Rachel more than two thousand years earlier. Women today frequently share the same fascination with fashion and makeup and hairstyling that was common then. At the same time, we are able to comprehend the sacrifice of worldly pleasure to serve God. Mother Teresa does not stand alone as a contemporary example. Missionary women, both Protestant and Catholic, are in many instances equal to these women in their selfless service. And as religious websites indicate, claims of the miraculous today are no less spectacular than then.
Yet we dare not trivialize the differences. Women then had very few options in life and virtually no access to education apart from a monastery. Health care was primitive, life spans short, and death in childbirth common. We are sometimes tempted to imagine beautiful maidens, glamorous fashions, enchanting castles. It looks believable on the movie set, but it’s not true to life. The glory of the Greek and Roman civilizations had long passed. Barbarians had overrun Europe. “Life was very primitive,” writes Philip Hughes. “Life in this vast Western backwoods—on this vast frontier—was hard and cruel . . . filled with all the violent crime one cares to imagine.”14
Life was dirty and disease ridden even in castles and convents. A vow of poverty only added to the misery. Imagine typical women’s issues: menstrual cramps, heavy periods, vaginal or urinary tract infections, pregnancy, morning sickness, childbirth, hot flashes all lived out with virtually no amenities. Such was medieval life. Toilet tissue, sanitary napkins, and clean bedding play no part in the world of Hilda, Lioba, Héloïse, and Clare.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
What in your life experience helps you comprehend the era referred to as the Dark Ages? Have you or anyone you’ve known lived in a situation without basic amenities that middle-class women take for granted?
Have you ever visited a medieval castle? How would you compare and contrast it with your own home for ease of heating, cooling, cleaning, cooking, eating, washing, bathing, and family activities? Do you ever think of yourself as living in luxury? Do you ever contemplate your wealth in comparison to those living in actual poverty?
How do you regard dreams? Have you ever had a dream that appeared to be a message or prophecy directly from God? How do you assess the dreams foretelling great ministry for Hilda and Lioba?
Imagine Lioba’s thoughts as she was left behind at a convent as a small girl. Does her treatment appear now as child abuse? Do you know of situations today that are reminiscent of growing up in a convent? Do Jesus’s words on children apply in such situations?
How do you assess the relationship between Héloïse and Abelard? Should he be considered a cad? An abuser? A handsome, pop-star lover? Héloïse is rightly categorized among women who love too much. Have you ever found yourself in their company?
Is it possible to have a spiritual love affair that rises above physical temptation, as Clare and Francis reportedly had? Have you experienced such a relationship yourself? How do you regard the practice of imagining Jesus as spouse and lover?
Which of the women featured in this chapter would you find the most suitable prayer partner at a women’s retreat?