Little is known of Andelys, except that it was founded by Queen Clotilda. At Chelles, founded by Queen Bathilda in 662, ten miles from Paris, on the river Marne, many famous persons, both men and women, received their education. Among them was a Northumbrian princess, Hereswith, whose sister was Hild, the most famous of English abbesses.
The prevalence and influence of the double monastery in England may perhaps be better understood by a reference to the position of women generally in Anglo-Saxon society. Nothing astonished the Romans more than the austere chastity of the Germanic women, and the religious respect paid by men to them, and nowhere has their influence been more fully recognised or more enduring than among the Anglo-Saxons. This fact largely accounts for the extreme importance attached by them to marriage alliances, particularly those between members of royal houses.[16] These unions gave to the princess the office of mediatrix; in Beowulf she is called Freothowebbe, "the peace-weaver."[17] From this rose the high position held by queens. Their signatures appear in acts of foundation, decrees of councils, charters, etc. Sometimes they reigned with full royal authority, as did Seaxburg, Queen of the West Saxons, after the death of her husband.[18] From the beginning of Christianity in England, the women, and particularly these royal women, were as active and persevering in furthering the Faith, as their men. "Christianity," says Montalembert,[19] "came to a people which had preserved the instinct and sense of the necessity for venerating things above," and "they at least honoured the virtue which they did not themselves always practise."
Consequently, when the young Anglo-Saxon women, having been initiated into the life of the cloister abroad, returned to England to found monasteries in their own land, they were received by their countrymen with reverence and respect. This respect soon expressed itself in the national law, which placed under the safeguard of severe penalties the honour and freedom of those whom it called the "Brides of God."
Princesses, royal widows, sometimes reigning queens, began to found monasteries, where they lived on terms of equality with the daughters of ceorls and bondmen; and perhaps it is fair to say that it was not the lowest in rank who made the greatest sacrifice.
But the influence of these women did not cease with their retirement to the cloister. When one of them, by the choice of her companions, or the nomination of the bishops, became invested with the right of governing the community, she was also given the liberties and privileges of the highest rank. Abbesses often had the retinue and state of princesses. They were present at most great religious and national gatherings, and often affixed their signatures to the charters granted on these occasions.[20]
I have already referred to one of the greatest of these abbesses, Hild of Whitby. She was the grandniece of Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria and had been baptised with her uncle at York in 627 by the Roman Missionary Paulinus.[21] Bede says that, before consecrating her life to religion, "she had lived thirty-three years very nobly among her family." When she realised her vocation, she went into East Anglia where her brother-in-law was king, intending to cross over to the continent and take the veil at Chelles. She spent a year here in preparation, but before she could accomplish her purpose, Bishop Aidan invited her to the north, to take charge of the double monastery of Hartlepool, which had been founded by Heiu, the first nun in England. "When," says Bede, "she had for some years governed this monastery, wholly intent upon establishing the regular life, it happened that she also undertook the construction or arrangement of a monastery in the place which is called Streonesheal (Whitby), and diligently accomplished the work enjoined upon her. For in this monastery, as in the first, she established the discipline of the regular life, and indeed, she taught there also, justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, but especially the guarding of peace and charity; so that, after the example of the primitive church, no one there was rich and none poor, all things were common to all and no one had property. So great was her prudence, moreover, that not only ordinary persons in their necessity, but even kings and princes sought and received counsel of her. She made those who were under her direction give so much time to the reading of the Divine Scriptures, and exercise themselves so much in the works of righteousness, that many could readily be met with there, who were fit to take up ecclesiastical office, that is, the service of the altar." Bede goes on to mention six men from Hild's monastery, who afterwards became bishops. The most famous was perhaps S. John of Beverley, who was first bishop of Hexham, and afterwards of York, and who was noted for his piety and learning. Aetta held the see of Dorchester for a time. Bosa, another scholarly disciple of Hild, became Archbishop of York, and Tatfrith was elected bishop of the Hwicce, though he died before his consecration.
None of these, however, have a greater claim to be remembered than the cow-herd Caedmon, the first English poet, and the story as given by Bede is perhaps one of the most charming in his Ecclesiastical History.[22] Apart from the literary interest attaching to the story, his life shows some of the details in outward organisation of these great double monasteries. Before his entry into the monastery, says Bede, he was advanced in years, and yet had so little skill in music that he was unable to take his turn at feasts in singing and playing on the harp, an accomplishment common to high and low among the Anglo-Saxons and kindred nations.
The story is familiar: on one occasion when the feast was over, he left the hall as soon as he saw the harp being passed, according to custom, from hand to hand. He went out to the cattle-sheds, tended the beasts and lay down to sleep. In a dream he heard a voice, "Caedmon, sing me something." He answered, "I know not how to sing; and for this cause I came out from the feast and came hither because I knew not how." Again he who spoke with him said, "Nevertheless, thou canst sing me something." Caedmon said, "What shall I sing?" He answered, "Sing me the Creation." Then Bede relates how the cow-herd sang songs before unknown to him, in praise of "the Creator, the Glorious Father of men, who first created for the sons of earth, the heaven for a roof, and then the middle world as a floor for men, the Guardian of the Heavenly Kingdom." When the abbess Hild heard of the miracle, she instructed him in the presence of many learned men to turn into verse a portion of the Scriptures. He took away his task and brought it to them again "composed in the choicest verse." Thereupon the abbess, says Bede, "embracing and loving the gift of God in the man, entreated him to leave the secular, and take upon him the monastic life, and ordered him to be instructed in sacred history." So he was received into Whitby monastery with all his family "and," continues the story, "all that he could learn he kept in memory, and like a clean beast chewing the cud, he turned it all into the sweetest verse, so pleasant to hear, that even his teachers wrote and learned at his lips."
The story throws a good deal of light on the way in which a large double monastery was organised. One gathers from it that not only isolated monks and nuns were received into the community but sometimes whole families. Caedmon entered "cum omnibus suis," which is generally taken to mean that his whole family were received with him. We see from it, too, how earnest was the desire of the superiors of the monasteries to instruct the ignorant; how rich and poor alike in the C7 might aspire to the monastic life, the only passport being the honest desire to serve God in the best possible way.
Again in the latter part of the story, dealing with Caedmon's sickness and death, there is evidence of how the aged, the sick and the dying were tended with special care.