CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.
At a synod held at Winchester under St. Dunstan, the monks averred, that so highly criminal was it for a priest to marry, that even a wooden cross had audibly declared against the horrid practice. Others place the first attempt of this kind, to the account of Aelfrick, archbishop of Canterbury, about the beginning of the eleventh century; however this may be, we have among the canons a decree of the archbishops of Canterbury, and York, ordaining, That all ministers of God, especially priests, should observe chastity, and not take wives: and in the year 1076, there was a council assembled at Winchester, under Lanfranc, which decreed, that no canon should have a wife; that such priests as lived in castles and villages should not be obliged to put their wives away, but that such as had none should not be allowed to marry; and that bishops should not ordain priests or deacons, unless they previously declared that they were not married. In the year 1102, archbishop Anselm held a council at Westminster, where it was decreed, that no archdeacon, priest, deacon, or canon, should either marry a wife, or retain her if he had one. Anselm, to give this decree greater weight, desired of the king, that the principal men of the kingdom might be present at the council, and that the [p161] decree might be enforced by the joint consent both of the clergy and laity; the king consented, and to these canons the whole realm gave a general sanction. The clergy of the province of York, however, remonstrated against them, and refused to put away their wives; the unmarried refused also to oblige themselves to continue in that state; nor were the clergy of Canterbury much more tractable.
In the celibacy of the clergy, we may discover also the origin of nunneries; the intrigues they could procure, while at confession, were only short, occasional, and with women whom they could not entirely appropriate to themselves; to remedy which, they probably fabricated the scheme of having religious houses, where young women should be shut up from the world, and where no man but a priest, on pain of death, should enter. That in these dark retreats, secluded from censure, and from the knowledge of the world, they might riot in licentiousness. They were sensible, that women, surrounded with the gay and the amiable, might frequently spurn at the offers of a cloistered priest, but that while confined entirely to their own sex, they would take pleasure in a visit from one of the other, however slovenly and unpolished. In the world at large, should the crimes of the women be detected, the priests have no interest in mitigating their punishment; but here the whole community of them are interested in the secret of every intrigue, and should Lucinda unluckily proclaim it, she can seldom do it without the walls of the convent, and if she does, the priests lay the crime on some luckless laic, that the holy culprit may come off with impunity.
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DESPERATE ACT OF EUTHIRA.
In ancient and modern history, we are frequently presented with accounts of women, who, preferring death to slavery or prostitution, sacrificed their lives with the most undaunted courage to avoid them. Apollodorus tells us, that Hercules having taken the city of Troy, prior to the famous siege of it celebrated by Homer, carried away captive the daughters of Laomedon then king. One of these, named Euthira, being left with several other Trojan captives on board the Grecian fleet, while the sailors went on shore to take in fresh provisions, had the resolution to propose, and the power to persuade her companions, to set the ships on fire, and to perish themselves amid the devouring flames. The women of Phœnicia met together before an engagement which was to decide the fate of their city, and having agreed to bury themselves in the flames, if their husbands and relations were defeated, in the enthusiasm of their courage and resolution, they crowned her with flowers who first made the proposal. Many instances occur in the history of the Romans of the Gauls and Germans, and of other nations in subsequent periods; where women being driven to despair by their enemies, have bravely defended their walls, or waded through fields of blood to assist their countrymen, and free themselves from slavery or from ravishment. Such heroic efforts are beauties, even in the character of the softer sex, when they proceed from necessity: when from choice, they are blemishes of the most unnatural kind, indicating a heart of cruelty, lodged in a form which has the appearance of gentleness and peace.
It has been alleged by some of the writers on human nature, that to the fair sex the loss of beauty [p163] is more alarming and insupportable than the loss of life; but even this loss, however opposite to the feelings of their nature, they have voluntarily consented to sustain, that they might not be the objects of temptation to the lawless ravisher. The nuns of a convent in France, fearing they should be violated by a ruffian army, which had taken by storm the town in which their convent was situated, at the recommendation of their abbess, mutually agreed to cut off all their noses, that they might save their chastity by becoming objects of disgust instead of desire. Were we to descend to particulars, we could give innumerable instances of women, who from Semiramis down to the present time, have distinguished themselves by their courage. Such was Penthesilea, who, if we may credit ancient story, led her army of viragoes to the assistance of Priam, king of Troy; Thomyris, who encountered Cyrus, king of Persia; and Thalestris, famous for her fighting, as well as for her amours with Alexander the Great. Such was the brave but ill-fated Boadicea, queen of the Britons, who led on that people to revenge the wrongs done to herself and her country by the Romans. And in later periods, such were the Maid of Orleans, and Margaret of Anjou; which last, according to several historians, commanded at no less than twelve pitched battles. But we do not choose to multiply instances of this nature, as we have already said enough to shew, that the sex are not destitute of courage when that virtue becomes necessary; and were they possessed of it, when unnecessary, it would divest them of one of the principal qualities for which we love, and for which we value them. No woman was ever held up as a pattern to her sex, because she was intrepid and brave; no woman ever conciliated the affections of the men, by rivalling them in what they reckon the peculiar excellencies of their own character.
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LUXURIOUS DRESS OF THE GRECIAN LADIES.
As the Greeks emerged from the barbarity of the heroic ages, among other articles of culture, they began to bestow more attention on the convenience and elegance of dress. At Athens, the ladies commonly employ the whole morning in dressing themselves in a decent and becoming manner; their toilet consisted in paints and washes, of such a nature as to cleanse and beautify the skin, and they took great care to clean their teeth, an article too much neglected: some also blackened their eyebrows, and, if necessary, supplied the deficiency of the vermillion on their lips, by a paint said to have been exceedingly beautiful. At this time the women in the Greek islands make much use of a paint which they call Sulama, which imparts a beautiful redness to the cheeks, and gives the skin a remarkable gloss. Possibly this may be the same with that made use of in the times we are considering; but however this be, some of the Greek ladies at present gild their faces all over on the day of their marriage, and consider this coating as an irresistible charm; and in the island of Scios, their dress does not a little resemble that of ancient Sparta, for they go with their bosoms uncovered, and with gowns which only reach to the calf of their leg, in order to show their fine garters, which are commonly red ribbons curiously embroidered. But to return to ancient Greece; the ladies spent likewise a part of their time in composing head-dresses, and though we have reason to suppose that they were not then so preposterously fantastic as those presently composed by a Parisian milliner, yet they were probably objects of no small industry and attention, especially as we find that they then dyed their hair, [p165] perfumed it with the most costly essences, and by the means of hot irons disposed of it in curls, as fancy or fashion directed. Their clothes were made of stuffs so extremely light and fine as to show their shapes without offending against the rules of decency. At Sparta, the case was widely different; we shall not describe the dress of the women; it is sufficient to say that it has been loudly complained of by almost every ancient author who has treated on the subject.