The Anglo-Saxon Nuns (part 4 of 6)

The Greco-Asiatic Archbishop Theodore, when he came from Rome to complete the organization of the Anglo-Saxon Church,^^*^ does not appear to have relished this institution, which was not unknown to the Christian East, but which had probably left equivocal recollections behind it. In one of his charges he forbids all new foundations of this description, though respecting those which already existed.^*^ But like so many other canons and decrees, his prohibition was disregarded; communities founded after his death, like Winbourne, were in full flower in the eighth century, and nothing indicates that double monasteries had ceased to flourish up to the general destruction of monasteries by the Danes at the end of the ninth century. They were swept away by that calamity, and no trace of them is to be found in the monastic revival of which King Alfred and the great Abbot Dunstan were the authors. It was a peculiarity belonging to the youth of the Church, which, like youth in all circumstances, went through all tbe difficulties, dangers, storms, and disorders of nature proper to that age, which disappear in maturer times.

"^ LixGAKD, Antiquities, vol. i. p. 212.

^^^ " Cietliiion... susceptum in monasterium cum omnibus suis fratrum cohort! iissociavit." — Hist. Eccl., iv. 24. " Puer trium circitcr annorura... qui propter infantilem adhuc aetatem in virginuin Deo dedicatarum solobat cella nutriri, ibiquc niedicari." — Ibid., iv. 8. We meet with many examples of a mother and daughter or two sisters being dedicated to God ia the same convent. — Cf. Bede, v. 3.

'^« See p. 34G.

"'' " Non licet viris feminas habere monachas, neque feminis viros, tamen non destruamus illud quod consuetudo est in hac terra." — Capitula et Fragmcnta, ap. Tiiokpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes, p. 307.

This institution, however, is a new and very striking proof of the power of woman in the social order, a fact which we have already pointed out. following the example of Tacitus, both among the Germans and Britons.^*^ Maintained, consolidated, and, in certain respects, sanctified by the Christian spirit among the Anglo-Saxons, it has remained very powerful in the race. It has produced that deference at once official and popular for the weaker sex, and, I willingly add, that public modesty of which the Anglo-Saxons of the present day in the United States give us so brilliant and honorable an example in their primary schools for boys, directed often in the midst of great cities, by young girls, who are protected against all outrage, and even all sarcasm, by the universal respect of both fathers and sons.i*^

Let us hasten to add that even at this primitive period no trace of the abuses or disorders which the suspicious spirit of modern criticism might summon into being, are to be found. This is explained by the precautions everywhere to be met with when double monasteries existed, and which seem never to have been discontinued. The double family lived separately, in two buildings entirely distinct,!^*^ though near. As a general rule the nuns did not leave their cloister, and the monks were strictly forbidden to enter the enclosure reserved to the nuns, without the permission of the abbess, and the presence of several witnesses. At Winbourne, which must always be quoted as the type of establishments of this description, the two monasteries rose side by side, like two fortresses, each surrounded by battlemented walls. The austerity of primitive discipline existed in 700-48 ^^^^ vigor at the time when Lioba, who was destined, under the auspices of St. Boniface, to introduce conventual life among the women of Germany, resided there. The priests were bound to leave the church immediately after the celebration of mass, bishops themselves were not admitted into the nunnery, and the abbess communicated with the external world, to give her orders to her

us ''Neque enim sexutn in imperio discernunt." — Agric, c. 16. " Soliturn Britannis feminarum ductii bellare." — Annal., xiv. 35.

'^^ Emile de Laveleye, De V Instruction Publique en Amerique, confirmed by the accounts of all impartial travellers.

¹⁶⁰ "Multi de fratribus ejusdem monasterii qui aliis erant in aedibus (Bede, iii. 8), regarding Faremoutier. " Earn monasterii partem, qua ancillarum Dei caterva a virorum erat secreta contubernio " {Ibid., iv. 7), as to Barking. spiritual and temporal subjects, only through a barred window.151

Coldingham is the only great community of this kind mentioned in history, the memory of which is not irreproachable, a fact which has been already mentioned in treating of the historical position of the Northumbrian princess, Ebba, foundress of that house.^^^ It must, however, be fully granted that the scandals pointed out by the severe and sincere Bede are not such as we might be tempted to expect they are rather failures in obedience to the cloistral rule, than any infringements of Christian morality. These scandals, besides, whether small or great, were gloriously atoned for in the following century, when, under another Ebba, the nuns of Coldingham, to escape from the brutality of the Danish conquerors, cut oflF their noses and lips, and by their heroic self-mutilation added the palm of martyrdom to that of virginity.153

With this single exception, the unanimous testimony of contemporary authors, as well as of more recent annalists, does full homage to the obedience to rule, the fervor, and even austerity of the double monasteries among the Anglo-

Saxons. A great number of the most illustrious female

saints, and prelates most distinguished by their virtues and knowledge, Avere educated in these communities, which were surrounded by universal veneration, and whose pure fame was never tarnished by the breath of calumny.^^*

Is this to say that all was perfect in the monas- The abuses tic institutions of the country and time which I ^Jl-fohave undertaken to bring to the knowledge of the saxonmonworld? God forbid that I should thus attempt to deceive my readers. The more I advance in my laborious and thankless task — that is to say, the nearer I approach to my grave — the more do 1 feel mastered and overpowered 151 << porro ipsa congregationis mater, quando aliquid exteriorum pro utilitate monastcrii ordinare vel niandare ncccsse erat, per fonostram loquobatur, et inde decernebat qurecumque ordinanda aut mandanda utilitatis ratio exigebat.... Virgines vero cum quibus ipsa indesinenter manebat, adeo immunes a virorum voluit esse consortio, ut non tantura laicis aut clericis, verum etiani ipsis quoque episcopis in congregationem earum negaret ingressum." Vita S. Lioba;, auct. Rudolpiio, c. 2, ap. Ada SS. 0. S. B., sa^c. iii. p. 2.

'*2 See p. 270.

¹⁵³ " Excmplura... non solum sanctimonialibus illis profieuum, verum etiam omnibus successuris virginibus leternaliter araplectcnduui." — Mattii. West., Kog. Wendov., Kic. Cikenc, ii. 70.

"^ LiNGAKD, I. C.

59* by an ardent and respectful love of truth, the more do I feel myself incapable of betraying truth, even for the benefit of what I most love here below. The mere idea of adding a shadow to those which already shroud it, fills me with horror. To veil the truth, to hide it, to forsake it under the pretence of serving the cause of religion, which is nothing but supreme truth, would be, in my opinion, to aggravate a lie by a kind of sacrilege. Forgive me, all timid and scrupulous souls! But I hold that in history everything should be sacrificed to truth— that it must be always spoken, on every subject, and in its full integrity. The lying panegyric, where truth is sacrificed merely by leaving out what is true, is quite as repugnant to me as the invectives of calumny.

I have therefore sought with conscientious care for evidences of all the abuses and disorders which could exist in English monasteries, and especially in nunneries. If I have found almost nothing, it is not for want of having thoroughly searched through the historians and other writers of the time. I may then venture to conclude that evil, which is inseparable from everything human, has left fewer traces in the Anglo-Saxon cloisters than elsewhere.

I hesitate to insist with the same severity which was shown by the pontiffs and doctors of the time on the first of Luxury in their complaints against the Anglo-Saxon communidress. ^ics, the excessive liking for rich and fine stuffs, in which certain nuns loved to dress themselves after having made them. These wonders of the distaff and broideryneedle, as they were used in the English cloisters, excited not only the anxiety but the indignation of the masters of spiritual life. Bede found nothing more serious to note in the transgressions which were to draw down the wrath of heaven upon Coldingham.^^^ Boniface, when he became archbishop and pontifical legate in Germany, did not hesitate to indicate this as one of the greatest dangers of monastic life.i^ Aldhelm exerts all his rhetoric to preserve his friends at Barking from the revolting luxury displayed by the clergy of both sexes in their vestments, and especially

155 <t Texendis subtilioribus indumentis operam dant, quibus at seipsas ad vicem sponsarum in periculum sui status adornent, aut externorum sibi virorum amicitiara comparent. Unde nierito... de coelo vindicta flammis ssevientibus praeparata est." — Hist. JEccL, iv. 25.

'°* " Ut clericos et sanctimoniales de tenuitate et porapa vestium argueret." — GuiLL. Malmesb., c. 82, p. 115. See above the text of the letter. by the abbesses and nuns, who wore scarlet and violet tunics, hoods and cuffs trimmed with furs and silk; who curled their hair with a hot iron all round their foreheads; who changed their veil into an ornament, arranging it in such a way as to make it fall to their feet; and who, finally, sharpened and bent their nails so as to make them like the claws of falcons and other birds of prey, destined by nature to chase the vermin upon which they feed.i^"

The Council of Cloveshove, however, justified these accusations by ordaining the monks and nuns to keep to the costume of their predecessors, and in particular to recall to their minds the simple and pure dress which they put on in the day of their profession, that they might no longer resemble bj^ a too gay exterior the women of the world. i°8

Let us pass on to facts of a graver nature. Do we not meet on our path some of those disorders which, in modern times, the religious orders have been accused of as unpardonable crimes? Has compulsion never been employed to impose monastic life upon the young Anglo-Saxons? I am led to suppose that such a thing must sometimes have occurred when I read in the Penitentiary of Archbishop Theodore that daughters whom their parents had compelled to become nuns should be exempted from all punishment, even spiritual, if they married afterwards.^^^

Was the virginal modesty of these brides of Lord, which the Anglo-Saxons surrounded by so nrodestyof much national and popular veneration, always spected by those who occupied the first rank in the newlyconverted nations, and for that reason ought to have shown them an example?

I am obliged to admit that this was not the case. Con- '" " Subucula bissina, sive hyacinthea, tunica coccinea capitium et manicaj sericis clavate callicula; rubricatis pellibus ambiuntur, anticEe frontis et temporum cicini calamistro crispantur, pulla capitis vclatnina candiJis et coloratis inafortibus cedunt, quse vittaruni nexibus assutaj talo tenus prolixius dopendunt, ungues ritu falconum et acoipitrum, seu certe cavannarum {sic) quus naturaliter ingenita edendi necessitas instigat, obunea pedum fuscinula et rapaci ungularum arprgine alites et sorices crudeliter inscctando grassari." — iJe Laudibus Virainit., c 58. Cf. c. 17 and 56.

158 ¹¹ -^Qj^ debent iterum habere indumenta sa3cularia, et ornatis et nitidis vestibus incedere, quibus laicaj puellaj uti solent."— Can. 28, ap. Coletti, vol. viii. p. 331.

¹⁵⁹ u puclla; quaj non parentum coaciee imperto, sed spontaneo judicio, virginitatis propositum atque habitum susceperunt, si postca nuptias diligunt, prjevaricantur, etiamsi consecratio non accesserit." — Liber Pwnitentialis, c. xvi. § 24, ap. Thokpe, p. 282.

704 THE ANGLO-SAXON NUNS,

temporary documents of unquestionable authority prove that more than one Anglo-Saxon king seems to have taken special pleasure in seeking his prey among the virgins consecrated to God.^'^'^ It is probable that the princes and nobles followed but too often the example of the kings. Besides divers incidents which have retained a place in history, the many provisions of the penal laws under the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman kings, from Alfred to Henry I,, against the rape of nuns— even when followed by subsequent marriage — and other outrages to their modesty, prove that such crimes were sufficiently well known to exact habitual and energetic repression.^'^i jt is but too easy to imagine the fascination with which men still half barbarians must have been attracted towards the crowds of young girls, often beautiful and of high lineage, always pure, well educated, and trained in the utmost delicacy to which civilization then reached, who were gathered together in the spiritual fortresses which might guard them against the temptations of secular life, but were ineffectual to protect them from the assaults of the great ones of this earth, traditionally accustomed to sacrifice everything to the gratification of their passions.

Still more surprising and afflicting are the decrees given by the principal spiritual legislators of the country, the great archbishops, Theodore of Canterbury and Egbert of York, which foresee and punish transgressions of cloistral continence in which violence could have no part, and which lead us to suppose that such crimes might be committed even by those whose duty it was to watch over the purity of the '^" See what is said above, quoting the epistles of St. Boniface, as to Osred, King of Northurabria, and Ceolred and Ethelbald, Kings of Mercia.

'^' The laws of Alfred foresaw and punished offences against the purity of nuns by the following regulations: —

" § 8. De concubitu nunne. Qui duxerit sanctimonialera ab ecclesia, sine licentia regis aut episcopi, amende de 120 sols; " half to the king, half to the bishop, " et ipsius ecclesise domino cujus monacha fuit." If she survives him "qui earn abduxit, nihil de pecunia ejus habeat." If she has a child "nihil inde habeat infans, sicut nee mater ejus."

" § 18. Si quis nunnam, causa fornicationis, in vestes aut in sinum, sine licentia comprehendat, sit hoc duplo amendabile, sicut antea de laica decrevimus." — Ap. Thokpe, pp. 32, 34, fol. e.d.

The same offence is punished by section 4 of King Edmond's ecclesiastical laws (940-946) by deprivation of Christian burial, " unless he make bot, no more than a man-slayer."

Art. 39 of the laws of the Council of Enham under Ethelred says, "If any one defile a nun, let him make bot deeply before God and the world." The law of Henry I., art. 73, de nunne concubitu, orders the culprit to go to Kome: " adeat Papam et consilium ejus scire faciat." sanctuary — those whose sacred character ought to have imposed upon them the strongest of all restraints — bypriests and even bishops.^'^^ j^q^ ^g state, however, that, at least during the period of which Ave have spoken, history reports no known incident which gives support to the humiliating provisions of the law; and we may add that Archbishop Theodore might have brought from his Eastern home the fear or recollection of certain excesses and corruptions which were strange to the character and habits of the northern nations, and have given them a place in his laws under the form of useful warnings. We should run the risk of falling into injustice and absurdity did we draw from such and such a provision of the penal code the conclusion that crimes thus stigmatized and punished were habitually committed by the nation which by its laws protested against them.^'^''^

Impartiality, besides, requires us to remind our readers of all that has been already said in respect to the abuses that had crept into the monastic order from the time of Bede; upon the false monasteries which were nothing but lands worked to the profit of lay donors, ridiculously tricked out in the title of abbot; and upon the false monks and nuns who inhabited these contraband monasteries, and lived there in every kind of disorder.^'^*^ To these pretenders, who, notwithstanding their known character, bore nevertheless the

'®* The Liber Pccnitentialis of Theodore (chap, xvi.) provides for the case where a layman " fornicationem iniretur cum multis... sanctimonialibus, ita ut etiam nuraerum nesciat," and condemns the culprit to ten years' fasting, three on bread and water. Chap, xviii., De fornicaiione clericorum, gives twelve years of penance to a guilty bishop, ten to a priest, eight to a monk or deacon, five to a clerk. The nun is equally punished. If there are children, the penance is prolonged to fifteen, twelve, ten, eight, and six years.

The married layman " maculans se cum ancilla Dei: " six years, two with bread and water; seven years if he has a child; five if he is not married. His companion in guilt the same.

" § 20. Si quis monacham quam ancillam Dei appellant, in conjugio duxerit, anathema sit." — Ap. Thorpe, pp. 282, 283.

" Monachus vel puella consecrata, si fornicati fuerint, septem annos jcjunent." — Ecgberti, Arch. Ebor., Confessionale, art. 13. Cf. Ecgberti, Excerptiones, No. 134 and 136.

'*•' What, for example, would be thought of an historian who from the text of art. 310 of our Fenal Code concluded that the offence it punishes was common in France?

" We may here recall the passage already partially quoted: " Quod enira turpe est dicere, tot sub nomine nionasteriorum loca {sic) hi qui nionachicas vita; prorsus sunt expertes in suam ditionem acceperunt.... Vel majore scelere atque impudentia, qui propositum castitatis non habent, luxuriae ac fornicationi deserviant, neque ab ipsis sacratis Deo virginibus abstineant." —BEDiB Epist. ad EcgheH., c. 6. title of monachi or sanctimoniales, are no doubt to be most generally imputed the excesses assailed in the ordinances of the English metropolitans and by the letters of St. Boniface; and let us hope that the accusation conveyed in the terrible and untranslatable words of his letter to the king of Mercia, '•' nice merehHces, sive monasteriales sive sceculares," ^^^ may be referred to the same class. Finally, it may be added that the great apostle, who was inspired at once by love of religion and desire for the honor of his country, spoke only by hearsay; that his most violent accusations are tempered by expressions of doubt; and that he never himself complained on his own authority of anything he had personally known or seen before his departure for Germany, but only what had been carried to him by report, more or less well founded, during the course of his mission in Germany.

V.

The Correspondence of St. Boniface, which is a precious and unique mine ^^^ of information as to the ideas and institutions of the Teutonic races at their entrance into Christianity, reveals to us besides, in many aspects, the spirit which reigned in the cloisters inhabited by Anglo-Saxon nuns. Before as well as after his apostolic career in Germany, Anglo™ Winefred, the most illustrious monk in Essex, kept ^P Sequent and intimate intercourse with the most distinguished nuns of his country. The letters which he wrote to them, and those which he received from them, acquired a double interest after his departure for the yet unexplored regions in which martyrdom awaited him. Only a very small number of them remains to us; but the

^^^ Epistolce S. BoNiFAcii, No. 59, ed. Jaffe, p. 175. He says also, in a letter to Archbishop Egbert of York: " Inauditum enim malum est praeteritis saeculis et in triplo vel quadruplo sodomitanam luxuriam vincens, ut gens Christiana... despiciat legitima matrimonia... et nefanda stupra conseeratarum et velatarum ferainanim sequatur." — Ibid., No. 61.

'^•^ It may be remarked that the usefulness of this collection is greatly lessened by the mania of each of its editors (WUrdwein in 1789, Giles in 1844, and Migne in 1863), subsequent to the first publication by Serrarius in 1605, for changing the order and' numbering of the Epistles. We have adopted the numbers given in the last and extremely correct edition by Jaffe Qlonumenta Moguntina, in Bibliothcca Rerum Germanicarum, vol. iii., Berolini, 1866), who thinks he has succeeded in introducing a certain chronological order entirely wanting in the older editions.

THE ANGLO-SAXON NTJNS. 707

few which have been preserved suffice to afford us a glimpse of what was passing in the souls of these generous, intelligent, and impassioned women, whose hfe was passed in the shadow of monasteries, and among whom the great missionary found not only devoted sympathy, but the most active and useful assistants.

It is evident, in the first place, from this picture, that all was not happiness and gentleness in the cloister. We are all apt to exaggerate both in the past and present the peace and serenity of religious life amid the storms either of the ancient world, so violent, warlike, and unsettled, or of modern society, so frivolous in its emotions, so servile, and so changeable in its servility. We are right to look upon the cloister as a nest suspended amid the branches of a great tree shaken by the winds, or like the inner chamber of a vessel beaten by the waves. It is in the midst of the storm, yet in it there is shelter; a refuge always threatened, always fragile, always perishable, but still a refuge. Outside is the noise of the waves, the rain, and the thunder; at every moment destruction is possible, or even near. But in the mean time the soul is safe; it is calm, protected, preserved, and sails on with humble confidence towards the port. Such a joy is sufficiently tempered by the sense of insecurity to be safe from becoming in itself a danger, a temptation to laxity or to pride.

But in this nest and in this bark, preserved from external tempests, how many storms and perils and sunken rocks are within! Even in the midst of the most peaceful and best regulated community, what a trial is there in the daily death of individual will! in the long hours of obscurity and silence which succeed to the effort and impulse of sacrifice! and in the perpetual sacrifice, continually borne, continually renewed! A modern master of spiritual life has said, with severe clear-sightedness, " The continuity alone of the exercises, which, although varied, have always something in them that goes against human inclinations, from the moment that they are done by rule and for the service of Ood, becomes very fatiguing." ^^^ AVhat a ray of pitiless light is thus thrown upon the weakness of the human heart! It accustoms itself to the rules, habits, and even to the most onerous obligations which have a purely earthly aim. But from the '<"' Notice of the Societe de la Sainto-Retraite, commenced at Fontenelles, in the diocese of Besan9on, 1787, by M. Eeceveur, p, 19 of the text corrected in 1791. moment that it is a work for God, dislike appears. The difficulty must be met and surmounted day by day. This is the great exertion, and also the infinite merit, of cloistral life.

If this is the case even among our contemporaries, who have been so long fashioned by Christian education and discipline, what must have been the effect upon the Saxon maidens of the seventh and eighth centuries, ters written r .•n j • j.i

spruug from a race still new and young in the ways nuns. q£ |.j^g Lord, and which was still so impetuous, so turbulent, so enamoured of its own strength, freedom, and untamed independence? To the material restraint, which, though voluntarily accepted, might well lie heavy upon them, were added other privations of which they had not perhaps calculated beforehand all the extent. Hence those restrained but incurable agitations, those cries of distress, those vague but ardent and impetuous desires, which break forth in the pages on which they poured out their hearts to the greatest and holiest of their countrymen.

It is to be regretted that these candid and eager souls had recourse to Latin to express their emotions and confidences. If they had employed their native idiom instead of a language which, though not dead, since it is the language of spiritual life, must have cost them many efforts ere they became familiar with it, we should no doubt have seen their thoughts flow forth more freely, precipitating themselves in tumultuous waves, in abrupt movements, bearing the characteristic mark of a powerful and impassioned originality, like the verse of Ceadmon or the poem of Beowulf Even under the artificial constraint imposed upon them by the use of Latin, the reader feels the swelling life and force of an original, sincere, and vehement nature.

The most striking peculiarity of these letters, in which unpractised hands reveal, in Latin more or less classical, and in superlatives more or less elegant, the agitations of their hearts, is the necessity they feel to express the tenderness, we might even say the passion, which animates them. The intensity of the affection which united some of them to each other, may be imagined from the tender enthusiasm of language with which they address the monk who has gained their confidence. Here is an example taken from a letter written to Winefred, after the first success of his mission in Germany, by the Abbess Bugga, who is supposed to have been the daughter of a king of Wessex, and who was consequently of the same race as her illustrious correspondent.168

" I do not cease to thank God for all that I have learned by your blessed letter; that He has led you mercifully through so many unknown countries; that He has favorably inclined towards you the heart of the Pontiff of glorious Rome; that He has cast down before you the enemy of the Catholic Church, Radbod the Frisian. But I declare to you that no revolution of time, no human vicissitude, can change the state of my mind towards you, nor turn it from loving you as I am resolved. The fervor of love so inspires me, that I am profoundly convinced of arriving at certain repose by your prayers. I renew, then, my entreaties to you to intercede in favor of my lowliness with the Lord. I have not yet been able to obtain the Passions of the 3Iartyrs, which you ask me for. I will get them as soon as I can. But you, dearest, send me, for my consolation, that collection of Extracts from the Holy Scriptures which you have promised me in your sweet letter. I beseech you to offer the oblation of the holy mass for one of my relations, called N., whom I loved above all. I send you by the bearer of these lines fifty sols and an altar-cloth; I have not been able to procure anything better. It is a little gift, but is offered you with great love." ^^^

Boniface and the companions of his mission were not less affectionate and unreserved in their epistolary communications with their sisters in religion, He wrote to those whom he hoped to draw to his and associate with himself in his apostolic work, as follows: " To my venerable, estimable, and dearest Leobgitha, Thekla, and Cynegilda, and to all the other sisters who dwell with you, and ought to bo loved like you, in Jesus Christ, the salutations of an eternal affecconjure and enjoin you to continue to do what you ^^ There are two, if not three, nuns of the name of Bugga, among Boniface's correspondents. We agree with the editor of Notes on the monastic tombs discovered at Hackness, p. 35, that the one here alluded to is the same whose ecclesiastical buildings are celebrated in the poem by St. Aldhelm (MiGNE, Patrology, vol. Ixxxix. p. 289), and to whom St. Boniface wrote his letter 86, ed. Jaffe, commencing, " O soror carissima."

¹⁶⁹ "Venerando Dei famulo... Bonifacio sivo Wynfritho dignissimo Dei presbytero Bugga vilis vernacula, perpetua; caritatis salutem.... Eo magis confiteor, quod nulla varictas temporalium vicissitudinum statum mentis mea; inclinare queat.... Sod ardeiUius vis amoris in me caloscit, duni pro certo cognosco.... Et tu, mi carissimus {sic), dirigo mea3 parvitati ad consolationem, quod per dulcissimas litteras tuas promisisti." — Ej}ist. 16.

VOL. n. GO have done in the past, and must do always, that is, pray God, who is the refuge of the poor and the hope of the humble, to deliver me from my necessities and temptations, I who am the last and least of all to whom the Church of Rome has intrusted the preaching of the Gospel. Implore for me the mercy of God that, at the day when the wolf comes, I may not fly like an hireling, but that I may follow the example of the good Shepherd, and bravely defend the sheep and the lambs, that is to say, the Catholic Church with its sons and daughters, against heretics, schismatics, and hypocrites. On your side, in these evil days, be not imprudent. Seek with intelligence to know the will of God. Act manfully with the strength given you by faith, but do all with charity and patience. Remember the Apostles and Prophets who have suffered so much, and received an eternal recompense." 1"°

A still more tender confidence seems to inspire him when he writes to the abbesses of the great English communities, and especially to Eadburga, who was to succeed St. Mildred in the government of the monaster}^ founded by her mother upon the shore where St. Augustin landed.!'^ He calls her " blessed virgin and beloved lady, accomplished mistress of the monastic rule." ^'^ He entreats her to pray for him while he is beaten about by all the storms which he must brave in the midst of heathens, false Christians, false priests, and licentious clerks.^'-^ " Do not be displeased that I always ask the same thing. I must ask often for that which I desire incessantly. My troubles are daily, and each day thus warns me to seek the spiritual consolations of my brethren and -sisters." i-"*

As his task becomes more laborious his heart has more and more occasion to pour itself forth to his old friend. " To

170 (( Yenerandis et amandis carissimis sororibus... aeterne caritatis salutem obsecro et prjecipio quasi filiabus carissimis.... Quia ultimus et pessimus sum omnium legatorum." I^p. 91.

'" See above, p. 383. The Abbess Eadburga only died in 751, four years before St. Boniface. He corresi)onded with her as well as with the Abbess of Earking before his departure for Germany.

'" " Beatissima; virgin! immo dilectissirase domin£e Eadburga, monastiese normulce conversationis emeritaj." — Ep. 10.

'-" Epist. 87, ed. Jaffe; 27, ed. Serrarius. The latter concludes, from certain passages, that this letter must have been addressed to Eadburga, although it bears no name, and says simply: " Reverendissimse ac dilectissimae ancillas Christi N."

'^* " Rogo ut non indignemini... quia cotidiana tribulatio divina solamina fratrum ac sororum me cpiaerere admonet."— Up. 87, ed. Jaffe. my beloved sister, the Abbess Eadburga, long interwoven with my soi^l by the ties of spiritual relationship. To my sister Eadburga, whom I clasp with the golden links of spiritual love, and whom I embrace with the divine and virgin kiss of charity, Bonifaba,, bishop, legate of the Roman Church, servant of the servants of ^<3d.... Know that for my sins' sake the course of my pilgriftiage is through storms; suffering and sadness are everywhere around me; and the saddest of all is the snare laid b}^ false brethren, which is worse than the malice of the unbelievers. Pray, then, to the Lamb of God, the only defender of my life, to protect me amidst all these wolves.... Pray also for these heathens who have been intrusted to us by the Apostolic See, that God, who desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, may deign to wrest them from idolatry and add them to our mother the Catholic Church. May the eternal rewarder of every good action make thee to triumph for ever in the glorious company of angels, my beloved sister, who by sending a copy of the Holy Scriptures hast consoled the poor exile in Germany. The man who has to penetrate into the darkest corners of these nations, cannot but fall into the snares of death, if he has not the word of God to light his steps. Pray, pray always, that He who from the highest heaven looks upon all that is humblest here below, may pardon me my sins, and grant to me when I open my mouth the eloquence that is needed to make the Gospel of the glory of Christ run and shine like a flame among the heathen nations." ^''^

He wrote with not less effusion and tenderness to the Abbess Bugga/'*^ who, overwhelmed with trials in the gov-

¹⁷⁵ u Dilectissimse sorori et jamdudum spiritalis clientelaj propinquitate connexa3.... Aureo spiritalis amoris vinculo amplcctendie et divino ac virgineo caritatis osculo stringendo sorori Eadburgae abbatissjE.... Undique labor, undique nioeror.... Carissiniam sororem remuncrator seternus... laitificet... quffi, sanctorum libroruni inunera transmittcndo, exulom Gernianicum... consolata est.... Qui tenebrosos angulos Gcrmanicarum gentium lustrare debet." Epist. 73, 75, ed. Jaffe. " Ut pra^stet mihi verbum in apertione oris mei" {Ephes. vi. 19); "ut currat et clarificctur inter gentes Evanj,'elium gloriai Christi " (2 Thessal. iii. 1).

'"« This Bugga was also called Eadburga. Could she be, as has been often supposed, the Ileaburg cognomcnto Bugga yi\\o figures in the title of Epistle 14 ed. Jaffe, 38 ed. Serrarius, 30 ed. Giles? Notliin.ur, it appears to us, can be more doubtful, but we have neither time nor power to discuss a question in itself so unimportant. The Anglo-Saxon custom of having two names, which we have already met with in the cases of Domneva or Enncnberga, foundress of Minster, and Winefrid or Boniface, &c., adds to the difflernment of her double monastery, had sought comfort from him, and who was anxious to complete her life by a pilgrimage to Rome. " To my beloved lady, the sister whom I love in the love of Christ, more than all other women, the humble Boniface, unworthy bishop.... Ah, dearest sister, since the fear of God and the love of travel have put between us so many lauds and seas, I have learned from many, what storms of trouble have assailed your old age. I am deeply grieved to hear it, and lament that, after having put aside the chief cares of the government of your monasteries, out of love for a life of contemplation, you should have met with crosses still more frequent and more painful. I write thus, venerable sister, full of compassion for your griefs, and full also of the recollections of your kindness and of our ancient friendship, to exhort and console you as a brother. ... I w^ould that you were always joyful and happy in that hope of which the Apostle speaks, which is born of trial and never deceives. I would that you should despise with all your strength these worldly troubles as the soldiers of Christ of both sexes have always despised them. ... In the springtime of your youth, the father and lover of your chaste virginity called you to Him with the irresistible accent of fatherly love; and it is He who, now that you are old, would increase the beauty of your soul by so many labors and trials. Meet, then, dearest friend, the sufferings of heart and body with the buckler of faith and patience, that you may complete in your beautiful old age the work commenced in the flower of your youth. At the same time, I entreat you, remember your ancient promise, and do not cease to pray the Lord that He may deliver my soul from all peril.... Farewell, and be sure that the faith which we have sworn to each other will never fail." ^'^^

culty and confusion, sometimes completely inextricable, of all researches into the history of the early Anglo-Saxon Church.

"^ " soror carissinia, postquam nos timor Christi et amor peregrinationis longa et lata terrarum ac maris intercapedine separavit.... Nunc autem... beneflciorum tuorum et antiquarum amicitiarum memor." —Epist. 86, ed. Jaffe. "Quia omnes milites Christi utriusque sexus tenipestates et tribulationes infirmitatesque hujus sfficuli despexerunt.... Qui pater et amator castse virginitatis tuaj, qui te primevo tempore juventutis tuae.... Ut quod in bona juventute coepisti, in senectute bella ad gloriam Dei perficias..,. Domina3 dilectissimaj et in amore Christi omnibus ceteris feminini sexus prasferendae sorori.... Bonifacius exiguus.... Fidem antiquam inter nos nunquam deficere scias." — Epist. 86, 88, ed. Jaffe.

This Abbess Bugga, who must not be confounded with the one quoted

As to the project of the pilgrimage to Rome, he will not pronounce either for or against it, but he begs her to wait the advice sent to her from Rome by their common friend, an abbess named Wethburga, who had gone there to seek that peace of contemplative life for which Bugga sighed, but had found only storms, rebellions, and the threat of a Saracenic invasion. ^'^

The Anglo-Saxon monks who had accompanied the future martyr in his apostolic mission, rivalled their chief in the Avarrath of their expressions in their letters to their cloistered sisters. LuUius, who was to replace Boniface in the archiepiscopal see of Mayence, wrote along with two of his companions to the Abbess Cuneburga, a daughter of one of the Anglo-Saxon dynasties, telling her that she occupied the first place above all other women in the innermost sanctuary of their hearts.^'^ The same Lullius wrote to the Abbess Eadburga, who was so dear to his master, begging her not to refuse him the sweetness of receiving letters from her, and to assure her that the spiritual brotherhood which united them made him capable of doing anything to please ljej._i8o There still remains to be quoted a letter from an anonymous monk to a nun equally unknown, which has had the honor of being preserved through all these ages, along with the letters of 'St. Boniface; a fact at which we rejoice, for it throws a pleasing light upon the tender and simple emotions which filled those honest, humble, and fervent hearts by whom Germany was won to the faith of Jesus Christ: — " N., unworthy of a truly close affection, to N., greeting and happiness in the Lord: Beloved sister, though the vast extent of the seas separate us a little, I am daily your neighbor in my memory. I entreat you not to forget the words that we have exchanged, and what we promised each other the day of my departure. 1 salute you, dearest

above, survived Boniface; she is mentioned as Jionorabilis abbatissa in a letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the successor of Bonifivce (Ep. 113, ed. Jaffe). She is probably the same who made a pilgrimage to Rome, and who will be spoken of farther on.

"8 Epist. 88, ed. Jaffu.

179 » Dominie dilectissimaj Christique religiosissimaj abbatissae, regaMsprosapia; gentrositate pra;dittc.... Agnoscere cupimus almitatis tux clementiara, quia te prte cajteris cunctis feminini sexus in cordis cubiculo cingimus amore." — Epist. 41, ed. Jaffe.

'*''* " Et si quid mihi... imperare volueris, scit caritas ille qua) inter nos est copulata spiritali germanitate, id meam parvitatem totis nisibus implere velle. Interea rogo ut mihi litteras tuae dulcedinis destinare non deneges." — Epist. 75, ed. Jaffe.

60* live long, live happy, praying for me. I write you these lines not to impose my wishes arrogantly upon you, but humbly to ask for yours, as if you were my own sister, did I possess one." ^^^

Tender and confidential as was the tone of the letters which arrived from Germany in the Anglo-Saxon cloisters, there seems to be something still more warm and intimate in the fragments which remain to us of those which were written in the cells of Winbourne, Minster, and many other monasteries, and which were sent from thence whenever a sure messenger presented himself, along with presents of books, vestments, spices, sacred linen, &c., to the monks engaged beyond the sea in the great work of the Teutonic missions.

One continually apparent feature in them, which we have already remarked, is an eager and unconquerable desire to travel, to go to Rome, notwithstanding the numerous and formidable obstacles which stood in the way of the pilgrimage, and the dangers of every kind to which women were exposed in undertaking it— dangers which Boniface and his companions had energetically pointed out. The last trace which remains to us of the exemplary activity of the illustrious Elfleda, Abbess of Whitby, who died in 714, after sixty years of monastic life, is a letter of recommendation addressed to the daughter of the king of Austrasia, who was abbess of a monastery near Treves, in favor of an English nun, whom she calls her daughter, as she had educated her from her youth; she had detained her as long as she could for the good of souls, but at last had permitted her to satisfy her ardent desire of visiting the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.is^ One of the chief friends of St. Boniface, the Ab-

^^' " Intinife dilectionis amore quamvis indignus.... Amantissima soror, licet longuscula alta marium sequalitate distam.... Sismemor, carissima, verborum nostrorum, quaj pariter pepigimus, quando profectus fueram.... Vale, vivens sevo longiore et vita feliciore, interpellans pro me. Haec pauca ad te scripsi, non arroganter mea commendans, sed humiliter tua deposcens seu... propriaj germanaj nuper nanctae. Vale." — Epist. 139, ed. Jaffe. This interesting production is unfortunately followed by an effusion in Latin verse much less admirable: —

" Vale, Christi virguncula, Christi nempe tiruncula, •, Mihi cara raagnopere atque gnara in opere," &c.

Cf. 96 and 97 of the same collection. Let us add that the same simple and tender familiarity between monks and nuns is found, live centuries after our Anglo-Saxons, in the interesting collection of letters from B. Jourdain de. Saxe, second general of the Dominicans, to the nuns of St. Agnes of Bologne and to the B. Diana, their foundress, recently published by Pere Bayonne, Paris and Lyons, Bauchu, 1865.

"2 Einst. 8, ed. Jaffe. bess Bugga, who must not be confounded with her The three whom Ave have just mentioned, had not only the fiilfuvo"""* strength and privilege of accomplishing that jour- I'-idburgas. ney, but also the happiness of meeting him at Rome, from whence she returned safe to resume the government of her comraunity.i^^

A third Bugga, who is also called Eadburga, eagerly entertained the same desire, and expressed it in a long letter written to Boniface, jointly with her mother Eangytha, who was abbess of the monastery in which both lived. What was this monastery? Its situation is not ascertained, but it is probable that it was either Whitby or Hartlepool, or some other house situated on the rocks which overlook the Northso entirely do the images employed both by the mother and daughter reveal a life accustomed to the emotions of a sea-shore. Both of them, while consulting him on their project, open their heart to him, and tell him of their trials; and through their abrupt and incoherent style and faulty Latin thus afford us a glimpse of the agitations and miseries which too often trouble the peace and light of the cloister. " Loving brother," they write, " brother in the spirit rather than in the flesh, and enriched by the gifts of the spirit, in these pages, which you see bathed by our tears, we come to confide to you alone, and with God alone for a witness, that we are overwhelmed by the troubles accumulated upon us, and by the tumult of secular affairs. When the foaming and stormy waves of the sea break against the rocks on the shore, when the breath of the furious winds has roused the breadth of ocean, as the keel of the boats is seen in the air, and the masts under water, so the boat of our souls is driven about by a whirlwind of griefs &,nd calamities. We are in the house which is spoken of in the Gospel: ' The rain descended, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house.' (Matth. vii. 25, 27). AVhat afflicts us above all is the recollection of our innumerable sins, and the absence of any really complete good work. And besides the care of our own souls, we must bear, which is harder still, that of all the souls of every age and of both sexes which have been confided to us, and of which we must render an account before the judgmentseat of Christ, not only of their actions, but also of their

>•*' See the curious and interesting letter of Ethelbert IF., Kinu: of Kent, to Boniface, to which we shall return later {Ejnst. 103, ed. Jatte; 73 ed. Giles). It will there be seen that this Bugga was of the race of the Ascings: "Utpote consanguinitate propincjuitatis nostric admonita." thoughts, which are known to God alone! To which must be added the daily toil of our domestic affairs, the discussion of all the quarrels which the enemy of every good takes pleasure in sowing among men in general, and especially among monks and in monasteries. And besides, we are tormented by our poverty, by the small size of our cultivated lands, and more still by the enmity of the king, who listens to all the accusations made against us by the envious; by the taxes laid on us for the service of the king, his queen, the bishop, the earl, and their satellites and servants, things which would take too much space to enumerate, and are more easily imagined than described. To all these distresses must be added the loss of our friends and relations,