The Anglo-Saxon Nuns (part 1 of 6)

' Quali colombe dal disio chiamate
Con I'ali aperte e ferme al dolce nido
Volan, per I'aer dal voler portate."

Dante, Inferno, c. 5.

'• Indi, como orologio che ne chlami
Nell' ora che la sposa di Dio surge
A mattinar lo sposo, perche I'ami,
Che I'una parte e I'altra tira ed urge
Till tin sonaudo con si doce nota
Che '1 ben dlsposto spirto d'amor turge;
Cosi vid' io la gloriosa ruota
Moversi e render voce a voce in tempra
Ed in dolezza ch' esser non puo nota
Se non cola dove '1 gioir s'insempra."

Paradise, c. 10.

' Come, pensive nun, devout and pure. Sober, steadfast, and demure."

Milton, Penseroso.

Convents of women as numerous and important as the monasteries of men.

— Important position of women among the Teutonic races. — Contrast with the Romans of the Empire. — Among the Anglo-Saxons, descendants of the Cimbri, the influence of women even greater and happier than in other nations. — Importance of dynastic alliances. — Anglo-Saxon queens. The Teutonic barbarians, though less corrupt than the Romans, nevertheless required an immense effort of the Christian apostles to conquer their sensual excesses. — The debt owed by women to Christianity. — The Church could only emancipate women by the ideal of Christian virginity. — This virginity nowhere more honored than among the Anglo-Saxons. — Influence and authority of abbesses. They appear in the national councils. —Ceremonial of the solemn benediction of a nun.

II.

Anglo-Saxon queens and princesses in the cloister. — The first nuns trained in France, at Farcm.outier, Jouarre, and Chelles. — Saint Botulph and the two East Anglian princesses at Chelles.

Each dynasty of the Heptarchy supplies its share of virgins, wives, and widows.

The Northumbrian nuns already well known, except Bega. — Legend of this princess, an Irishwoman by birth. — Perpetual confusion of history and tradition.

The Ascings, or princesses of the Kentish dynasty. — Ethelburga, Queen of Northumbria, afterwards foundress of Lyrainge. — Her sister Eadburga, and her niece Eanswida, foundress of Folkestone. — The legend of Domneva and her brothers. — The hind's run in the Isle of Thanet. — Great popularity of St. Mildred. — Legend of the box on the ear. — Mildred's sisters. — Milburga and the dead child.

The Mercian princesses. — The race of the cruel Penda furnished the greatest number of saints and nuns. — Three of his daughters nuns, and four of his granddaughters saints.

The Uffings of East Anglia. — The three daughters of King Anna who fell in battle. — Withburga and her community fed on hind's milk. — Three, generations of saints of the race of Odin at Ely, which had for its three ' first abbesses a Queen of Northumbria, a Queen of Kent, and a Queen of Mercia. — Wereburga, the fourth sainted Abbess of Ely, and the shepherd of Weedon.

Nuns of the race of Cerdic in Wessex; the wife and sisters of King Ina. —

St. Cuthburga, foundress of Winbourne. — The monastery of Frideswida, a "West Saxon princess, is the cradle of the University of Oxford: the kiss of the leper.

III.

Literary, biblical, and classical studies among the Anglo-Saxon nuns —

chiefly at Barking, under Abbess Hildelida. St. Aldhelm addresses to them his Eulogy of Virginity; his letters to other nuns. — Winbourne, another centre of intellectual activity. — Abbess Tetta and her five hun- -; djed nuns: the novices dance on the tomb of their mistress.

IV.

Winbourne, a double monastery. — Origin of these singular institutions. —

They flourished chiefly in the Irish colonies in Gaul: from thence introduced into England. — A monastery of men joined to every great abbey of women, and always governed by the abbess. — Interdicted by Archbishop Theodore. — The double monasteries disappeared after the Danish invasion; resemblance to the boys' schools managed by young girls in the United States. — In the seventh and eighth centuries no disorders are remarked in them except at Coldingham. — What were the abuser of the Anglo-Saxon cloisters. — Splendor of dress; attempts upon the modesty of the nuns foreseen and punished by Anglo-Saxon legislation. —Decrees of Archbishop Theodore and Egbert against the criminal relations of the clergy with nuns; their importance should not be exaggerated.

V.

The letters of St. Boniface contain the surest accounts of the state of souls in the Anglo-Saxon cloisters. — All there was not calm and happiness. —Tender and impassioned character of the letters addressed by the nuns to Boniface and his companions. — The not less affectionate answers of the missionaries. — The three Buggas and the two Eadburgas. — Earnest desire to make pilgrimages to Rome. — Grievances of the Abbess Eangytha and her daughter. — How St. Lioba became connected with St. Boniface. — Other letters written to the saint by his friends: Cena, Egburga. —Lamentation of a nun for the absence of her brother.

VL

Excesses of feeling vanish before death, but death itself does not put an end to the sweet friendships of the cloister. — St. Galla. — Hilda and her friend; Ethelburga and her friend; the daughters of Earl Puch. — Visions of light. — The daughter of the King of Kent and the lay sister at Faremoutier. — The shining shroud at Barking; the extinguished lamp.

VII.

History has preserved only these names, but many others have disappeared after glorifying the Church and their country. — Masculine character of these Anglo-Saxon nuns: their monastic ideal unites the types of man, woman, and child.

Conclusion. — The whole ancient Catholic world has perished except the array of sacrifice. — Number and endurance of contemporary vocations.

" Hark how I'll bribe you:.,. Ay, with such f^ifts that heaven shall share with you;

... With true prayers That shall be up at heaven and enter there

Ere sunrise — prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal."

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. I HAD supposed my task at an end; but I hear the sound as of a choir of sweet and pure voices which seem to reproach me for having left in the shade one side of the great edifice which I have undertaken to reconstruct in thought. These voices have no plaintive sound. But they are full of a soft and overpowering harmony which has not been sufficiently celebrated before men. The souls whose sentiments they utter do not complain of being forgotten; it is their chosen condition and desire. They have made greater sacrifices than that of a place in the memory of men. Strength, veiled by gentleness, is in their very breath. Their appearance in history is characterized by something clear and firm, sober yet animated, as well as by that sacrifice of life in its flower, which is of all things in the world the most touching. These are the daughters of the Anglo-Saxon kings and lords, and with them, a true nation of virgins, voluntary prisoners of the love of God,i and consecrated to monastic life in cloisters which rival in number and influence the monasteries of men, the most important centres of Christian life.

AVe have already seen how, outside their communities, and mingled in the current of the historical events of their time, several of those vigorous women, those wise virgins and spiritual warriors, have left their trace in the history of their country. But such isolated figures do not suffice for an attentive study of the state of souls and things in times so distant. Account must be made of other personages of the same order, and above all as much as is possible of the feminine army which is arrayed by the side of those queens and princesses. The crowd must be penetrated in any attempt to trace this fruitful and powerful branch of the monastic family, and in default of exact and precise details, which are rarely to be found, an effort, at least, must be made to seize the salient points, and to iDring out such features of their life as may touch or enlighten posterity.

And, in the first place, to give any exact representation of the Anglo-Saxon nuns as they appeared in their own consciousness and to the eyes of their countrymen, the important part played by women among the Teutonic I'^ccs must be borne in mind. Nothing had more astonished the Romans than the austere chastity of the German women; ^ the religious respect of the men for the partners of their labors and dangers, in peace as well as in war; and the almost divine honors with which they surrounded the priestesses or prophetesses, who sometimes presided at their religious rites, and sometimes led them to combat against the violators of the national soil.^ When the

^ '' That voluntary prison into which they threw themselves for the love — BossuET, L'xorde du Sermon sur Jesus Christ comme Sujet de Scandale.

^ " Severa illic matrimonia: nee uUam morum partem magis laudaveris.... Ne se mulier extra virtutum cogitationes, extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsis incipientis matrimonii auspiciis admonetur, venire se laborum periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in prailio passuram ausuramque.... Paucissima in tarn numerosa gente adulteria." — Tacit., De Mor. German., c. 18, 19.

3 Ibid., c. 8. Cf. C^SAR, De Bell. Gall., i. 50, 51.

THE ANGLO-SAXON NUNS. 64^

Roman world, undermined by corruption and imperial despotism, fell to pieces like the arch of a cloaca, there is no better indication of the difference between the debased subjects of the empire and their conquerors, than that sanctity of conjugal and domestic ties, that energetic family feeling, that worship of pure blood, which are founded upon the dignity of woman, and respect for her modesty, no less than upon the proud independence of man and the consciousness of personal dignity. It is by this special quality that the barbarians showed themselves worthy of instilling a new life into the West, and becoming the forerunners of the new and Christian nations to which we all owe our birth.

Who does not recall those Cimbri whom Marius Especially had so much trouble in conquering, and whose women rivalled the men in boldness and heroism?

,

Those women, who had followed their husbands to the war, gave to the Romans a lesson in modesty and greatness of soul of which the future tools of the tyrants and the Ceesars were not worthy. They would surrender only on the promise of the consul that their honor should be protected, and that they should be given as slaves to the vestals, thus putting themselves under the protection of those whom they believed virgins and priestesses. The great beginner of democratic Dictatorship refused: upon which they killed themselves and their children, generously preferring death to shame.* The Anglo-Saxons came from the same districts bathed by the waters of the Northern Sea, which had been inhabited by the Cimbri,-^ and showed themselves worthy of descent from them, as much by the irresistible onslaught of their warriors, as by the indisputable power of their women. No trace of the old Roman spirit which put a wife in manu, in the hand of her husband, that is to say, under his feet, is to be found among them. Woman is a person and not a thing. She lives, she speaks, she acts for herself, guaranteed against the least outrage by severe penalties, and protected by universal respect. She inherits, she disposes of her possessions — sometimes even she deliberates, she fights, she governs, like the most proud and powerful of

^* Florus, 1. iii. c. 3.

^* 'Troximi Oceano Cimbri tenent, parva nunc civitas, sed gloria ingens." — De Moribus German., c. 37. Jutland, Schleswig, and Holstein, from •whence came the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, bore the name of the Cimbric Chersonese.

VOL. n. 55 men.^ The influence of women has been nowhere more effectual, more fully recognized, or more enduring than among the Anglo-Saxons, and nowhere was it more legitimate or more happy.

From the beginning of Christianity, women everywhere became, as has been seen at every page of this narrative, the active and persevering, as well as daring and unwearied assistants of the Christian apostles; and when the conversion of the race was complete, no Fredigond appeared, as among the Gallo-Franks, to renew the evil behavior of the Roman empresses. If there existed among these queens and princesses certain violent and cruel souls, there was not one who could be accused of loose morals or immodest inclinations. The national legend is here in perfect accord with the monastic, and popular tradition with history. From the beautiful Rowena, sister of the first conqueror Hengist, to the famous Countess Godiva— from the daughter of Ethelbert, who carried the faith into Northumbria, to the wife of Ina, who procured the conversion of her husband — we encounter, with few exceptions, only attractive and generous figures, in whom beauty and modesty meet together, and the gentleness natural to woman is allied with an energy which reaches heroism.

From this fact arises the extreme importance attached by the Anglo-Saxons to matrimonial alliances which united among themselves the various sovereign dynasties, and the nations or tribes whose local independence and glorious recollections were personified by them. These unions, by renewing periodically the ties of a common nationality, gave to the princesses of the race of Odin the office of mediatrix and peacemaker to a degree which justifies the touching surname given to woman in the primitive poetry of the Anglo- Saxons, where she is described as freodowehhe, she who weaves the links of peace.''

Thence, too, arose the great position held by the queens in all the states of the Anglo-Saxon confederation. Possessing a court, legal jurisdiction, and territorial revenue on her

® In this respect there was no difference between the victors and the vanquished. Women had always occupied an important place among the Britons, and often reigned and fought at their head; witness Boadicea immortalized by Tacitus. Free women, married and possessing five acres of land, voted in the public assemblies of the clans or tribes of Britain. — Ancient Laws of Cambria— ap. Palgrave and Lappenberg.

^ Beowulf, verse 3880. own account,^ surrounded with the same homage, sometimes invested with the same rights and authority as the sovereign, his wife took her place by his side in the political and religious assemblies, and her signature appeared in acts of foundation, in the decrees of the councils and in the charters, sometimes followed by those of the king's sisters, or other princesses of the royal house. Sometimes these royal ladies, associated, as they were among the Teutons of whom Tacitus speaks, in all their husbands' cares, labors, and dangers, gave all their efforts, like Ermenilda of Mercia, to the conversion of a still heathen kingdom; ^ sometimes, like Sexburga in Wessex, they exercised the regency with full royal authority, and almost manly vigor.^*^ There is no instance of a woman reigning alone by hereditary right or by election. But the mysterious act which ended the days of the Northumbrian Osthryda,i' Queen of the Mercians, reminds us that we are in the country where Mary Stuart, the first who ever lost a crowned head on a scaffold, was to prove that women were there destined to all the greatness and all the calamities of supreme power.

At the same time it would be a strange delusion to suppose that the traditional respect shown by the Teutonic races to woman, or to certain women, was sufficiently strong or universal to restrain all the excesses of the most formidable passion and most imperious instinct of fallen humanity, among the Anglo-Saxons. Of all the victories of Christianity there is none more salutary and more necessary, and at the same time none more hardly and painfully won, than that which it has gained, gained alone and everywhere, though with a daily renewed struggle, over the unregulated inclinations which stain and poison the fountains of life. Its divinity here shows itself by a triumph which no rival philosophy,

^ Lappexberg, vol. i. p. oGi.

» See above, p. 340.

"' Sexburga, widow of the King of Wessex, Kinewalk, was made Queen- Regent by her husband at his death in 673. " Nee deerat mulieri spiritus ad obeunda regni munia. Ipsa novos exercitus moliri, veteres tenere in officio, ipsa subjectos clemcnter moderari, hostibus minaciter infremere, prorsus omnia facere, ut nihil praeter sexum discerneres. Verumtamen plus quam femincos animos anhelantcin vita destituit, vix annua potestate perfunctam." — Gcill. Malmesb., i. 32; Ric. CinEKC, ii. 40.

" "A suis, id est Merciorum primatibus, interempta." Bede, v. 24. "Crudeliter necaverunt." — Matth. Westmoxast., ad. ann. 696. See in pp. 299, 414, 420, what we have said of her, and her devotion to her uncle, St. Oswald, and her husband Ethelred, the friend of Wilfrid, who abdicated to become a monk at Bardeney. no adverse doctrine, has ever equalled, or will ever aspire to equal. No doubt the barbarians, according to the testimony of the Fathers, were more chaste than the Romans of the Empire. To succeed in introducing a respect for modesty and priestly celibacy in the midst of the corruptions of imperial Rome — to raise in the midst of the universal debasement the type of virginity consecrated to God — religion needed an amount of strength, majesty, and constancy, which the terrible wrestle maintained for three centuries could alone have given to it.

Neither was it a brief or easy enterprise to offer and place the yoke of continence upon the shoulders of a barbarous race, in proportion as they seized their prey, and established themselves as masters of the future. It was a glorious and painful task to struggle day by day in that terrible confusion, in the desperate obscurity of the tempest, against an innumerable band of victors, inflamed by all the lusts of strength and conquest, and poisoned even by contact with their victims. The struggle was long, glorious, difficult, and triumphant. It was no longer the unnatural debauchery and monstrous orgies of the Roman empire which had to be denounced; but there remained the vile and gross inclinations, the brutally disordered appetites of human and savage nature. There are excesses and crimes which, though not set forth in the pages of Petronius and Suetonius, though seen only in glimpses through the articles of a penitentiary, the canons of a council, the mutilated text of a legend or chronicle, reveal no less gulfs of shame and sorrow. The Teutons were more respectful than the Orientals or Romans to those women whom they considered their own equals or superiors; but who shall say what was the fate of those of inferior condition, and especially of the unfortunates hidden

in the dreary darkness of slavery or serfdom? Who shall

say what were the sublime and forever unknown efforts which were made by the priests of a God of purity to wrest so many young captives, so many slave or serf girls, frona the harems of princes, from the pitiless passion of victorious warriors, and the tyrannical caprices of their masters? God alone knows these efforts, God alone has rewarded them. Attentive and sincere history can but note the general result, which was immense and glorious.

Christian civilization has triumphed, and its triumph rests, above all, upon respect for the wife, virgin, and mother — that transfigured woman of whom the mother of God has become the type and guardian in Christian nations.^^

It is Christianity which has armed woman with her own weakness, and made of it her strength— a strength more august and respected than any other: " when I am weak, then am I strong." The Christian religion has been the true countr}'' of woman; the only one in which she has found her true freedom, her true destiny, coming out of Egyptian bondage, escaping from paganism, from savage life, or from the still more shameful debasement of civilized depravity. This also, and this alone, could give a free field to all the virtues which are characteristically her own, those which make her not only equal, but often superior to man — generosity, the heroism of patience and self-devotion, suffering accepted for the help of others, victory over selfishness, and the sacrifice of pride to love. This work of atonement and salvation, which is the only true emancipation of woman, and, by her, of virtue and the soul, has been the work of the Church with the aid of the Teutonic race.

And the Church has done this work only by elevating above and beyond the level of virtue, which women in general can reach, that ideal of moral virtue and beauty which can be realized only by virginity consecrated to God. She has raised this ideal above the virtues most admired and most worthy to be admired among the ancient nations, even among the Jews, where fruitfulness was a woman's supreme glory. She has given embodiment, discipline, law, a soul, an inextinguishable light, to the confused notions spread throughout antiquit}^; she has transformed into a splendid and immortal array those little groups of vestals, sibyls, and Druidesses, which were scattered through the heathen world. Respect for modesty, which among the most generous nations was the privilege of a small and chosen number, she has brought to be the inviolable inheritance of every human creature: at the same time she has made the privileged state of virginity consecrated to God to be the common dowry of Christendom, the lawful and supreme ambition of the poorest child of the people, as well as of the daughter of kings; and for eighteen centuries she has drawn from all countries and conditions, myriads of chaste and radiant creatures, who have rushed to her altars, bringing their heart and life to God who became man in order to redeem them.

^- See L'Uistoire de Sainte Elisabeth, Introduction, pp. 7G, 134.

Our Anglo-Saxons were neither the last nor the least instruments of this glorious transformation. Amid all the overflowings of their natural intemperance, they had preserved the instinct and a sense of the necessity of veneration for things above: they could, at least, honor the virtues which they would not or could not practise. The spectator stands amazed at the crowd of neophytes of both sexes who came from all the races of the Heptarchy, to vow themselves to perpetual continence. None of the new Christian nations seem to have furnished so great a number; and among none does Christian virginity seem to have exercised so prompt and so supreme an influence. The young Anglo-Saxon women who gave themselves to God, though they were initiated into the life of the cloister in the Gallo-Frankish monasteries, which had the advantage of being sooner established than those of England, had to return to their own island to realize their own value in the eyes of their countrymen.

The Anglo-Saxon conquerors regarded with tender and astonished respect the noble daughters of their race, who appeared to them surrounded by an unknown, a supernatural grandeur, and power at once human and divine— victorious over all the passions, all the weaknesses and lusts, of which victory had but developed the germs. This respect soon became apparent in the national laws, which agreed in placing under the safeguard of severe penalties the honor and freedom of those upon whom Anglo-Saxon legislation bestowed the title of brides of the Lord and sjjoases of God}^

When oue of these holy maidens found herself invested, by the choice of her companions, or the nomination of a bishop, with the right of governing abbesses. ^^^ representing a numerous community of her companions, the chiefs and people of the Heptarchy accorded her, without hesitation, all the liberties and attributes of the most elevated rank. The abbesses, as we have seen by the example of Hflda, Ebba, and Elfleda, had soon an influence and authority which rivalled that of the most venerated bishops and abbots. They had often the retinue and state of princesses, especially when they came of royal blood. They treated with kings, bishops, and the greatest lords on terms of perfect equality; and as the rule of the cloister does not seem to have existed for them, they are to be seen going '' " Godes bryde."— Thorpe's Ancient Laws of England, yol. ii. pp. 188, 20G, 207. where they please,^* present at all great religious and national solemnities, at the dedication of churches, and even, like the queens, taking part in the deliberations of the national assemblies, and affixing their signatures to the charters therein granted. The twenty-third article of the famous law or dooms of loa sets, in certain points, not only abbots, but abbesses, on the same level with kings and the greatest personages of the country .1^ In the Council of Beccancelde, held in 694 by the bishop and king of Kent, the signatures of five abbesses appear in the midst of those of the bishops, affixed to decrees intended to guarantee the inviolability of the property and freedom of the Church.^^

How were the monasteries filled whose superiors occupied so elevated a rank in the spiritual and temporal hierarchy of the Anglo-Saxons, and what was their life? This question it will be both important and difficult to answer.

No contemporary writer has left us a complete authentic picture of the interior of the great Anglo-Saxon communities. No indisputable document is in existence which brings before us the system of rules and customs followed by thousands of nuns who wore the black robe and veil of the spouses of the Lord. We are reduced to the scanty incidents which are to

" The reader may remember the meeting appointed by the Abbess Elfleda of Whitby with St. Cuthbert at Coquet Ishind, and also the festival to which she invited the same bishop on the dedication of a church built on one of her estates. See pp. 407, 477.

'^ " Si homo alienigena occidatur, habeat rex duas partes were su» et terciam partem habeant filii vel parentes sui. Si parentes non habeat, dimidiam habeat rex, dimidiam consocii. Si autem abbas vel ahbatissa intersit, dividant eodem modo cum rege." — Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, pp. 471-500, fol. ed.

'* This is the council mentioned above, p. 314, and which is also known under the names of Bapchild and Beckenham: the king who presided at it, Withred, reigned thirty-three years. The decrees were given by the votes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, " cum abbatibus, abbatissis, presbyteris, diaconibus, ducibus, ct satrapis."— Wilkins, Concilia, i. p. 47. In Coletti, vol. viii. p. 79, there are five signatures of abbesses: —

Signum ruanus : Mildredaj, abbatissae.
" " Etheldrida;, ahbatissa;.
" " Aetaj, abbatisso!.
" " Wilnoda;, abbatissae.
" " Ilereswidae, ahbatissa;.

The other signatures are those of the king and queen Werburga for their infant son, afterwards of two princes or lay lords, of the archbishop, the two bishops, and seven priests; there are no abbots. Kemble, vol. ii. p. 198, maintains that all signatures of women, other than queens, which are found attached to certain rare charters, must be those of abbesses summoned to attend assemblies where there might be question of the interests of their communities. Lingard (vol. i. p. 239) is more sceptical on this subject. be found in the history of the time, in that of the reigning families from which came most of the principal abbesses, and specially from the biographies of the most holy or most celebrated among these illustrious women. But by contrasting these incidents with those which reveal to us the origin and result of similar vocations among all the other Christian nations, by lighting them up with the light which shines in history, from the commencement of Christianity, we arrive at a point of comprehension perhaps satisfactory enough, but with which at least we must content ourselves.

In the absence of any existing record of their special rules and customs, the liturgical remains of the Anglo-Saxon CJiurch reveal to us the spirit which animated both the pontiffs, and the novices by whom these great and frequent sacrifices were made. There, as everywhere else, under the ancient discipline, it was the bishop, and he alone, who had the right of receiving the final vows of the virgin and of consecrating her solemnly to God. Although the Irish, with their habitual rashness, permitted girls to take the veil at the age of twelve,!^ the Anglo-Saxon Church forbade the taking of the irrevocable vows until after the twenty-fifth year had been accomplished, in accordance with a custom which began to prevail in the whole Church, and which was a modification of the decrees of the Pope St. Leo and the Emperor Majorian, who had defurred to the age of forty the reception of the solemn bcnedictiou. On the day fixed for that ceremony, whjch took place Only at the principal festivals of the year, and in presence of a numerous assemblage, Saxon nun. ^^j^q bishop began by blessing the black robe which was henceforward to be the sole adornment of the bride of God. The novice put it on in a private room,^'^ from which she came forth, thus clothed, and was led to the foot of the altar, after the reading of the Gospel; the officiating bishop having already begun to say mass. There she listened to his exhortation; after which he asked for two public engagements which were indispensable to the validity of the act in the first place, the consent of the parents and other guardians of the novice; and in the second place, her own promise of obedience to himself and his successors. When this had been done he laid his hands upon her to bless her and consecrate her to the God whom she had chosen. The Pontifical

" Maktene, De Antiquis Ecclesiee Riiibus, lib. ii. c. 6, vol. iii. p. 109. '® " De papilione aut loco ubi benedictas vestes induerant, accersebantur per archipresbyterum virgines consecrandae." of Egbert, Archbishop of York, and an Anglo-Saxon manuscript found in the Norman abbey of Jumieges, have preserved to us the prayers used by the bishop at this supreme moment. The maternal tenderness of the Church overflows in them with a fuhiess and majesty which recalls the Menees of the Greek Church to such a degree, that it might be supposed old Archbishop Theodore, the contemporary of Egbert's most illustrious predecessor, had brought from the depth of Asia Minor into the Northumbrian capital this ardent breath of Oriental inspiration.

" May God bless thee, God the creator of heaven and earth, the Father all-powerful, who has chosen thee as He chose St. Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, to preserve thy virginity entire and spotless, as thou hast promised before God and the angels. Persevere then in thy resolutions and keep thy chastity with patience, that thou mayest be worthy of the virgin's crown.

" May God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit bless thee with all blessings, that thou mayest remain immaculate and perfect under the robe of St. Mary, the mother of Christ. May the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and strength, of knowledge and piety, rest upon thee and fill thee with the fear of God. May He deign to establish thy frailty, fortify thy weakness, confirm thy strength, govern thy soul, direct thy steps, inspire thy thoughts, approve thy acts, complete thy works; may He edify thee by His charity, illuminate thee by His knowledge, keep thee by His mercy, exalt thee by His holiness, strengthen thee by patience, bring thee to obedience, prostrate thee in humility, encourage thee in continence, teach thee frugality, visit thee in infirmity, relieve thee in sadness, reanimate thee in temptation, moderate thee in prosperity, soften thee in anger, protect thy modesty, correct thy sins, pardon thy backslidings, and teach the discipline which shall lead thee, strong in all virtue and resplendent in good works, to do everything in view of the eternal reward! Mayest thou always have for thy witness Him whom thou shalt one day have for thy judge, that when thou enterest into the bridal chamber with thy lamp lighted in thy hand, thy divine Spouse may find in thee nothing impure and sordid, a soul white as snow, and a body shining with purity; so that at the terrible day of judgment the avenging flame may find nothing to consume in thee, and divine mercy find everything to crown! Mayest thou, purified in this world by monastic life, rise to the tribunal of the eternal King to dwell in his celestial presence with the hundred and fortyfour thousand innocents who follow the Lamb wherever He goes, singing the new song, and receiving the reward of thy labors here below in the dwelling-place of those who live forever,^^ Blessed be thou from the highest heaven by Him who came to die upon the cross to redeem the human race, Jesus Christ our Saviour, who lives and reigns forever with the Father and the Holy Spirit."

The bishop then placed the veil ^"^ on her head, saying, " Maiden, receive this veil,^^ and mayest thou bear it stainless to the tribunal of Jesus Christ, before whom bends every knee that is in heaven and earth and hell."

Then he continued: " God, who deignest to inhabit '* "Fragilem solidet, invalidam roboret, validamque confirmet, pietate allevet, miseratione conservet, mentem regat, vias dirigat, cogitationes sanctas instituat, actus probet, opera perficiat, caritate jedificet, sapientia illuminet, castitate muniat, scientia instruat, fide confirmet, in virtute multiplicet, in sanctitate sublimet, ad patientiam prseparet, ad obedientiam subdat, in humilitate prosternat, ad continentiam det fortitudinem, reddat sobriam, protegat pudicam, in infirmitate visitet, in dolore relevet, in tentatione erigat, in conversatione custodial, in prosperitate temperet, in iracundia niitiget, iniquitatem emendet, infundat gratiam, remittal offensa, tribuat disciplinam, ut liis et his similibus virtutibus fulta et Sanctis operibus illustrata, ilia semper studeas agere, quae digna fiant in remuneratione. Ilium habeas testem quern habitura es judicem; et aptare, ut praefulgentem gestans in manu lampadem, intratura sponsi thalamum occurras venienti cum gaudio, et nihil in te reperiat foetidum, nihil sordidum, nihil incultum, nihil corruptum, nihil inhonestum, sed niveam et candidam animam corpusque lucidum atque splendidum; ut cum dies ille tremendus, remuneratio justorura retributioque malorum advenerit, non inveniat in te ultrix flamma quod uret sed divina pietas quod coronet, quae jam in hoc sseculo conversatio religiosa mundavit, ut tribunal seterni regis ascensura celsa palatia cum eisdera merearis portionem qui sequuntur Agnum, et cantant canticum novum sine cessatione, illic preceptura prajmiura post laborem, semperque maneas in viventium regione atque ipse benedicat te de coelis, qui per crucis passionem huraanum genus est dignatus venire in terris redimere Jesus Christus, Dominus noster, qui," &c. — Mar- TENE, op. cit., p. 116.

^" The veil was sometimes jvhite, as is apparent from the following service, De Virgine Vestienda, taken from an Irish manuscript, in the Library of Zurich, and quoted in the Missal of Arbuihnott of Dr. Forbes, p. xiv. (Burntisland, 1864): —

" Oremus, fratres carissimi, misericordiam ut cunctum bonum tribuere dignetur huic puellse N. quae Deo votura candidam vestem perferre cum integritate coronse in resurrectione vitae aeternae quam facturus est, orantibus nobis, prestet Deus.

" Conserva, Domine, istius devotse pudorem castitatis, dilectionem continentiae in factis, in dictis, in cogitationibus. Per te, Christe Jesu, qui, etc.

" Accipe, puellam, pallium candidum, quod perferas ante tribunal Domini."

'' " Accipe, puella, vel vidua, pallium." — Martene, op. cit., p. 117. It is evident that these formulas were used at the consecration of widows as well as of virgins. chaste forms, and lovest the virgin soul; God who hast renewed humanity corrupted by the fraud of the devil, and re-established it by the creating Word, so as not only to restore it to primitive innocence, but to procure it everlasting possessions, and to raise it from the bosom of creatures still bound with the chains of this life, to a level with the angels

" Look upon Thy servant here present, who, placing in Thy hand the resolution to live forever in chastity, offers to Thee the devotion with which this vow has inspired her. Give to her. Lord, by thy Holy Spirit, a prudent modesty, a benevolent wisdom, a sweet gravity, a chaste freedom.^^ How could a soul imprisoned in this mortal flesh have vanquished the law of nature, the liberty of license, the strength of habit, the pricks of youth, hadst Thou not lighted in her the flame of virginity, didst Thou not Thyself nourish the flame by the courage which Thou deignest to inspire her with? Thy grace is spread throughout all nations under the sun, which are as many as the stars in number; and among all the virtues which Thou hast taught to the heirs of Thy New Testament, one gift flows from the inexhaustible fountain of Thy generosity upon certain persons which, without diminishing in anything the honor of marriage, and the blessing which Thou hast promised on the conjugal tie, enables those higher souls to disdain all mortal union, to aspire to the sacrament which unites Jesus Christ to His Church, to prefer the supernatural union of which marriage is the emblem to the natural reality of marriage. This blessed virgin has known her Creator, and, emulating the purity of the angels, desires to belong only to Him who is the Spouse and the Son of perpetual virginity. Protect then. Lord, her who implores Thy help, and who comes here to be consecrated by Thy blessing. Let not the ancient enemy who is so skilful to turn aside the most excellent desires by the most insidious assaults, ever succeed in withering in her the palm of perfect maidenhood.

" Grant, Lord, by the gift of Thy Spirit, that she may keep the faith which she has sworn to Thee, that at the unknown day of Thy coming, far from being troubled, she may go forth to meet Thee in all security, and enter freely with

^^ " Sit in ea... prudcns modestia, sapiens benignitas, gravis Icnitas, casta libertas." — Ibid., p. 119. the choir of wise virgins by the royal gates of Thy eternal dwelling-place." ^^

At the conclusion of the mass, the pontiff pronounced upon the new nun a new benediction, which was turned by the acclamations of the people into a kind of dialogue.

" Send, Lord, Thy heavenly blessing upon Thy servant here present, upon our sister, who humbles herself under Thy hand, and cover her with Thy divine protection.-'

And all the people answered. Amen.

The Bishop. — May she ever flee from sin, know and desire what is good, and win the sacred treasures of heaven.

People. — Amen.

Bishop. — May she always obey the divine precepts, escape with their aid from the violent rebellions of the flesh, vanquish depraved voluptuousness by the love of chastity, keep always in her lamp the oil of holiness, and delight herself in the radiance of eternal light.

People.— Amen.

Bishop).— May she ever carry in her hand the sacred fire, and thus enter at the royal gate of heaven, in the footsteps of Christ, to live forever with wise and spotless souls.

People. — Amen.

Bishop. — May He whose empire is without end grant our prayers.

People.— Amen.

^' " Deus castorum corporum benignus habitator.... Respice super banc famulam tuam N. quae in manu tua continentiae suce propositum collocaus, tibi devotionem suain offert, a quo et ipsa idem votum assumpsit. Quando enim animus mortali carne circumdatus, legem naturae, libertatem licentise, vim consuetudinis, et stimulos ietatis evinceret, nisi tu banc flammam virginitatis, vehementer accenderes tu banc cupiditatem in ejus corde benignus aleres, ut fortitudinem ministrares? EflPusa namque in omnes gentes gratia tua, ex omni natione, quae est sub coelo, in stellarum innumerabilem numerum, novi Testamenti bajredibus adoptatis, inter caeteras virtutes, quas filiis tuis non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, sed de tuo spiritu genitis indidisti, etiam hoc donum in quasdam mentes de largitatis tuae fonte defluxit, ut cum bonorem nuptiarum nulla interdicta minuissent, et super conjugalem copulam tua benedictione permaneret; existerent tamen subliraiores animae, quae non concupiscerent quod babet mortale connubium; sed hoc eligerent quod promisit divinum Christi Ecclesiae sacramentum: nee imitarentur quod nuptiis agitur, sed diligerent quod nuptiis prajnotatur. Agnovit auctorem suum beata virginitas, et aemula integritatis angelica?, illius tbalamo illius cubiculo se devovit, qui sic perpetuse integritatis est sponsus, quemadmodum perpetuas virginitatis est filius. Iraploranti ergo auxilium tuum, Domine, et confirmari se benedictionis tuffi consecratione cupienti, da protectionis tuae munimen et regimen, ne hostis antiquus qui excellentiora studia, subtilioribus infestat insidiis, ad obscurandam perfectie continentiae palmam per aliquam mentis serpat incuriam, et rapiat de proposito virginum quod etiam moribus decet inesse nuptarum." — Ibid., p. 118.

Bishop. — The blessing of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, rest upon thee, my sister, hereafter and forever.

People.— Amen.^

II.

The number of bishops being so small, and the everincreasing multitude of nuns so great, it is doubtful whether these touching and solemn services could be used in the case of all the virgins consecrated to the Lord in the Anglo- Saxon cloisters,25 But it may be believed that they were never omitted when a maiden or widow of one of the reigning dynasties of the blood and race of Odin sought the veil of the spouses of the Lord.

For in England as elsewhere, and perhaps more than elsewhere, the nuns were at the same time sax^a of the highest and of the humblest classes. Some ^"fnT/gsea^ were born of those conquering and sovereign races

|.^J/g\^gj. whose exploits have been reviewed, in which the blood of the Merovingians sometimes mingled with that of the offspring of the Norse Olympus, and which, by intermarrying always among themselves, maintained in all its native purity the character of the descendants of Odin, —

" Du sang de Jupiter issues des deux cotes," —

they summed up in themselves all that their countrymen held in highest esteem as greatness and majesty.

But beside them, and sometimes above, when placed there by the election of communities, appears the daughter of

*• " Effunde, Domine, benedictionem coclcstcm super banc famulam, sororem nostrara N.... quaj se liumiliavit sub dextera tua.

" Protege earn protectione tua divina. Amen.

" Fugiat universa delicta, sciat sibi bona desidcria praeparata, ut regni coelestis sancta conquirat lucra. Amen.

" Parcat semper divinis prajceptis, ut te adjuvante vitet incendia carnis, omnemque libidinem pravje voluptatis superet amore castitatis, babeat in se oleum sanetitatis, et laitetur cum lampadilius sempiternis. Amen.

" Gestet in manibus fiices sanctas, et apud sapientes et castissimas aniraas, duce Cbristo, introire mereatur januam regni coelestis. Amen.

"Quod ipse praistare dignetur, cujus regnuni et imperium sine fine permanet in sajcula sa;culoruni." — Martene, op. cit., p. 121. Cf. Lingard, Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1-i.

^* No. 92 of tbe Excerptiones of Archbishop Egbert renews tbe prohibition of Pope Gelasius to give the veil to nuns at any other time than tbe feasts of Epipbany, Easter, or tbe feasts of the Apostles, unless tbe novice was dying.

VOL. IL 56 the obscure Saxon, of the ceorl, perhaps even of the conquered Briton; and others from a still greater distance and lower level, redeemed from slavery and withdrawn from outrage, from the stains which were the too frequent consequence of captivity. All marched under the same banner, that of sacrifice; all bore its glorious mark. Some gave up a crown, wealth, and greatness; others their family, their love, their freedom; all had to give up themselves. The meanest in birth were certainly not those to whom the sacrifice was the most costly. It is too probable that these Anglo-Saxon princesses and great ladies were naturally haughty and insolent, hard and unkindly to the rest of mankind— in some cases bloodthirsty and pitiless, like the heroines of the Teutonic epic, Criemhild and Brunehild; and of all the miracles wrought by Christianity in England, there is scarcely any more wonderful than the transformation of so great a number of such women, in the new communities, into docile daughters, cordial sisters, mothers truly tender and devoted to their inferiors in age and blood.

It must be acknowledged that the observation of the chroniclers of those distant centuries rarely goes beyond the queens and princesses, whose religious vocation must have specially edified and touched the souls of their contemporaries; and who, beautiful, young, and sought in marriage by princes of rank equal to their own, gave up the world to keep their love entire for God, and to consecrate so many places of refuge at once peaceful and magnificent for future generations of God's servants.

In respect to the maidens of humbler origin, but of life as pure and self-devotion as dauntless, who surround the greater personages of our tale, we can but follow the ancient authors, taking advantage of every indication which throws light upon the life and soul of so great a multitude.

The queens and princesses range themselves into three principal classes. They were, in the first place, virgins devoted to God, sometimes from the cradle, like the abbesses Ebba of Coldingham and Elfleda of Whitby, who were the devoted friends and protectresses of Wilfrid. Then followed wives who separated themselves from their husbands, during their lifetime, and often much against their will, to embrace a religious life: of this class St. Etheldreda is the most celebrated example. And, finally, widows who ended in the cloister a life mostly devoted on the throne to the active extension as well as the self-sacrificing practice of the new religion. We have seen more than one touching example of the last-named class— such as that of Queen Eanfleda, the first benefactress of Wilfrid, who, after the death of her husband King Oswy, found shelter for her widowhood at Whitby, and there ended her days under the crosier of her daughter.

By a privilege which does honor to France, it The first was among us, in the country of Queen Bertha, the tr"a^ned in first Christian queen of the Anglo-Saxons, that the France. first English nuns were trained. France was thus the cradle of the Anglo-Saxon communities. In the time of the first missionaries, when monasteries were few, many of the new Christians of England learned the rules of monastic life among the Gallo-Franks, to whom they had been taught, more than a century before, by the glorious St. Martin, and after him by St, Maur, the cherished disciple of St. Benedict, and by St. Columbanus, the illustrious propagator of Celtic monachism. The Anglo-Saxons sent or took their daughters into Gaul, and the first beginning, in particular, of the great Christianity which was about to burst the bud in Great Britain, seems to have been specially prepared and formed in the communities on the banks of the Marne and the Seine, at Jouarre, Faremoutier, les Andelys, and later at Chelles.26

JtDuarre, Faremoutier, and the neighboring mon- Especially asteries formed a sort of monastic province, de- atFnrependent on Luxeuil, and occupied by the disciples ™°" "^'^' of St. Columbanus.-^ The pious and courageous Burgundofara, la nohle haronne de Bou7^gogne, blessed from her infancy by the holy patriarch of Luxeuil, ruled at Faremoutier the great foundation which has made her name illustrious for twelve centuries. She had with her an entire colony of young Anglo-Saxons. It had been the intention of Hilda, the great Abbess of Whitby, from the time when she made up her mind to leave the world,^ to lead a conventual life in one

^* "Multide Britannia monachicas conversationis gratia, Fran corum vel Gallicoruni monastcria adire solebant; sed et filias suas eisdem erudiendas ac sponso ccelesti copulandas niittebant." — Bede, 1. iii. c. 8.

2' See vol. i. pp. 008, G13.

'^ See p. 259. Bede says that it was at Chelles that Hereswida became a nun. Pagi, in his criticism on Baronius (ad ann. G80, c. 14 to 20), maintains by arguments too long to be quoted that Bede and Mabillon were both mistaken, one in supposing Hereswida to have been a nun at Chelles, and the other in thinking that Hilda joined her there. He proves that there was no trace of the two sisters either in the archives or calendars of Chelles before of the cloisters on the banks of the Marne, where her sister, Hereswida, the Queen of East Anglia, even before she became a widow, had sought an asylum, and where she ended her life in the practice of the monastic rule.^^

However, it was not the Northumbrians alone — as might have been expected from the connection which linked to the great Catholic apostles of converted France a country itself converted to Christianity by Celtic missionaries — who thus sought the spiritual daughters of St. Columbanus. The young princesses and daughters of the great lords belonging to the kingdom of Kent, which was exclusively converted by Roman missionaries, showed as much, or even greater eagerness. The great-granddaughter of the first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxons, Earcongotha, added a new lustre to the community of Faremoutier by the holiness of her life and death. She was, says Bede, a virgin of great virtue, worthy in everything of her illustrious origin.^o East Anglia paid also its contribution to the powerful foundation of the noble Burgundofara. Two sisters of Etheldreda, whose strange story has been already recorded, governed in succession, notwithstanding their character of foreigners, the Gallo-Frankish Abbey of Faremoutier, while their sister founded the greatest convent of nuns which had yet been seen in England.^^ Ten centuries later another foreign princess, who had been received at Faremoutier, and whose memory has been made immortal by the genius of Bossuet, gave him an occasion to sound the praises of this famous house in a language which was perhaps more applicable to the community of the seventh century than to that of the seventeenth. " In the solitude of Sainte-Fare— as much separated from all worldly ways as its blessed position now separates it from all traffic with the world; in that holy mountain where the spouses of Jesus

1672, the epoch when the community obtained from Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, by means of the famous casuist St. Beuve, authority to celebrate the feast of St. Hilda on the 27th of November, and to inscribe the name of St. Hereswida on the calendar of the sacristy at the date of December 9.

^* " In eodem monasterio soror ipsius Hereswid, mater Aldulfii regis orientalium Anglorum, regularibus subdita disciplinis, ipso tempore coronam expectabat aeternam." Bede, iv. 23. Pagi thinks she became a nun seven years before the death of her husband, but with his consent.

^^ " Ut condigna parent! soboles, magnarura fuit virgo virtutum, serviens Domino in monasterio quod... constructum est ab abbatissa nobilissima, vocabulo Fara." — Bede, iii. 8.

^' " Sffithryd, filia uxoris Annae regis... et filia naturalis ejusdem regis ^dilbcrg, quas utraque, cum esset peregrina, prse nierito virtutum ... est abbatissa constituta." — Ibid. Cf. Bolland, vol. ii. July, p. 481.

Christ revive the beauty of ancient days, where the joys of earth are unknown, where the traces of worldly men, of the curious and wandering, appear not — under the guidance of the holy abbess, who gave milk to babes as well as bread to the strong, the beginning of the Princess Anne was very happy." ³²

The illustrious abbess whom Queen Bathilde, herself an Anglo-Saxon by birth, placed in the celebrated Monastery of Chelles when she re-established it, saw her community increased by a crowd of nuns whom the fame of her great qualities and tender kindness attracted from the other side of the Channel. Christians of both sexes felt the power of this attraction, for there were at Chelles as many Anglo-Saxon monks as nuns. Everything prospered so well, everything breathed a piety so active, ieryent, and charitable, that the kings of the Heptarchy, moved by the perfume of virtue and good fame that rose from the double monastery peopled by their country-folks, emulated each other in praying the Abbess Bertile to send them colonies from her great bee-hive to occupy new foundations in England.^-^

In this way probably came Botulph, whom we Botulph have already mentioned, and who was the one of ^J^^ ^^^^^ ' Wilfrid's contemporaries most actively engaged in Anglian the extension of monastic institutions.^ Before he p""'^^"'^^' was restored to his native soil, he had inspired with a lively and deep affection for himself two young Anglo-Saxon princesses who had been sent to France, when scarcely more than infants, to learn monastic life. They loved in him, we are told, not onl}' a great master in holy and chaste living, but still more their countryman, a teacher of their own country and race. When they knew that he was about to return to England, they were overwhelmed with sadness, their only consolation in which was to recommend him with all their might to their young brother, who was king, it is not known where, under the regency of his mother; after

^^ Oraison Fiin'ebre de la Princcsse Palatine, Anne de Gonzague. " " Cujus convcTsatio sobria et benignissima advocavit plurimas fidolium animas feminarum imraoque et virorum. Nee solunimodo ex vicina provincia, sed etiain ex transmarinis partibus, sancta; liujus feniinic felici fama pcrcurrente, ad earn relictis parentibus et patria cum summo amoris desidcrio... festinabant.... Etiam a transmarinis partibus Saxoniaj rcgcs illi fideles ab ea permissos postulabant ... qui virorum et sanctimonialum coenobia in ilia regione construerent." — FiVa S. BeHilce, c. 5, G, ap. Mabillon, Ad. SS. 0. S. B., see vol. iii. p. 20.

^* See p. 507.

66e THE ANGLO-SAXON NUNS.

which there is no mention of them in history.^^ The touching image of these two young creatures appears in history only to bear witness to the faithfuhiess of their patriotism in the pious exile which was imposed upon them. It is a sentiment of which we shall find many traces among the Anglo- Saxon nuns.

Were there But among the first nuns of the Heptarchy were amoncr°the^ thcro not, iu the first place, virgins of Celtic origin, from Scotland or Ireland, like the monk-missionaries whose labors have been set forth? Nothing is more probable, though there is no positive proof of their existence. It would be impossible from this point of view to pass in silence a holy princess whose name is still popular in the north of England, and who has been long concluded by the annalists to be of Irish origin, while, at the same time, they recognize in her the instructress of the women and maidens Legend of of Northumbria in monastic life. To the west of this district, in the county which we now call Cumberland, upon a promontory bathed by the waves of the Irish Sea, and from which in clear weather the southern shore of Scotland and the distant peaks of the Isle of Man may be seen, a religious edifice still bears the name and preserves the recollection of St. Bega.^^ She was, according to the legend, the daughter of an Irish king, the most beautiful woman in the country, and already asked in marriage by the son of the King of Norway. But she had vowed herself, from her tenderest infancy, to the Spouse of virgins, and had received from an angel, as a seal of her celestial betrothal, a bracelet marked with the sign of the cross.^'' On the night