“At length they chaunst to meet upon the way
An aged sire, in long blacke weedes yclad,
His feet all bare, his head all hoarie gray,
And by his belt his booke he hanging had;
Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad,
And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,
Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad;
And all the way he prayed as he went,
And often knockt his brest as one that did repent.
“He faire the knight saluted, louting low,
Who faire him quited, as that courteous was;
And after asked him if he did know
Of strange adventures which abroad did pas.
‘Ah! my dear sonne,’ quoth he, ‘how should, alas!
Silly[118] old man, that lives in hidden cell,
Bidding his beades all day for his trespas,
Tidings of war and worldly trouble tell?
With holy father sits not with such things to mell.’[119]
******
Quoth then that aged man, ‘The way to win
Is wisely to advise. Now day is spent,
Therefore with me ye may take up your in
For this same night.’ The knight was well content;
So with that godly father to his home he went.
“A little lowly hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a forest’s side,
Far from resort of people that did pass
In traveill to and froe; a little wyde
There was an holy chappell edifyde,
Wherein the hermite dewly wont to say
His holy things, each morne and eventyde;
Hereby a chrystall streame did gently play,
Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway.
“Arrived there, the little house they fill;
Ne look for entertainment where none was;
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
With fair discourse the evening so they pas;
For that old man of pleasing words had store,
And well could file his tongue as smooth as glas;
He told of saintes and popes, and evermore
He strowd an Ave-Mary after and before.”[120]
Faery Queen, i. 1, 29, 33, 34, 35.
CHAPTER II.
ANCHORESSES, OR FEMALE RECLUSES.
nd now we proceed to speak more particularly of the recluses. The old legend tells us that John the Hermit, the contemporary of St. Anthony, would hold communication with no man except through the window of his cell.[121] But the recluses of more modern days were not content to quote John the Egyptian as their founder. As the Carmelite friars claimed Elijah, so the recluses, at least the female recluses, looked up to Judith as the foundress of their mode of life, and patroness of their order.
Mabillon tells us that the first who made any formal rule for recluses was one Grimlac, who lived about 900 A.D. The principal regulations of his rule are, that the candidate for reclusion, if a monk, should signify his intention a year beforehand, and during the interval should continue to live among his brethren. If not already a monk, the period of probation was doubled. The leave of the bishop of the diocese was to be first obtained, and if the candidate were a monk, the leave of his abbot and convent also. When he had entered his cell, the bishop was to put his seal upon the door, which was never again to be opened,[122] unless for the help of the recluse in time of sickness or on the approach of death. Successive councils published canons to regulate this kind of life. That of Millo, in 692, repeats in substance the rule of Grimlac. That of Frankfort, in 787, refers to the recluses. The synod of Richard de la Wich, Bishop of Chichester, A.D. 1246, makes some canons concerning them: “Also we ordain to recluses that they shall not receive or keep any person in their houses concerning whom any sinister suspicion might arise. Also that they have narrow and proper windows; and we permit them to have secret communication with those persons only whose gravity and honesty do not admit of suspicion.”[123]
Towards the end of the twelfth century a rule for anchorites was written by Bishop Richard Poore[124] of Chichester, and afterwards of Salisbury, who died A.D. 1237, which throws abundant light upon their mode of life; for it is not merely a brief code of the regulations obligatory upon them, but it is a book of paternal counsels, which enters at great length, and in minute detail, into the circumstances of the recluse life, and will be of great use to us in the subsequent part of this chapter.
There were doubtless different degrees of austerity among the recluses; but, on the whole, we must banish from our minds the popular[125] idea that they inhabited a living grave, and lived a life of the extremest mortification. Doubtless there were instances in which religious enthusiasm led the recluse into frightful and inhuman self-torture, like that of Thaysis, in the “Golden Legend:” “She went to the place whiche th’ abbot had assygned to her, and there was a monasterye of vyrgyns; and there he closed her in a celle, and sealed the door with led. And the celle was lytyll and strayte, and but one lytell wyndowe open, by whyche was mynistred to her poor lyvinge; for the abbot commanded that they shold gyve to her a lytell brede and water.”[126] Thaysis submitted to it at the command of Abbot Pafnucius, as penance for a sinful life, in the early days of Egyptian austerity; and now and then throughout the subsequent ages the self-hatred of an earnest, impassioned nature, suddenly roused to a feeling of exceeding sinfulness; the remorse of a wild, strong spirit, conscious of great crimes; or the enthusiasm of a weak mind and morbid conscience, might urge men and women to such self-revenges, to such penances, as these. Bishop Poore gives us episodically a pathetic example, which our readers will thank us for repeating here. “Nothing is ever so hard that love doth not make tender, and soft, and sweet. Love maketh all things easy. What do men and women endure for false love, and would endure more! And what is more to be wondered at is, that love which is faithful and true, and sweeter than any other love, doth not overmaster us as doth sinful love! Yet I know a man who weareth at the same time both a heavy cuirass[127] and haircloth, bound with iron round the middle too, and his arms with broad and thick bands, so that to bear the sweat of it is severe suffering. He fasteth, he watcheth, he laboureth, and, Christ knoweth, he complaineth, and saith that it doth not oppress him; and often asks me to teach him something wherewith he might give his body pain. God knoweth that he, the most sorrowful of men, weepeth to me, and saith that God hath quite forgotten him, because He sendeth him no great sickness; whatever is bitter seems sweet to him for our Lord’s sake. God knoweth love doth this, because, as he often saith to me, he could never love God the less for any evil thing that He might do to him, even were He to cast him into hell with those that perish. And if any believe any such thing of him, he is more confounded than a thief taken with his theft. I know also a woman of like mind that suffereth little less. And what remaineth but to thank God for the strength that He giveth them; and let us humbly acknowledge our own weakness, and love their merit, and thus it becomes our own. For as St. Gregory says, love is of so great power that it maketh the merit of others our own, without labour.” But though powerful motives and great force of character might enable an individual here and there to persevere with such austerities, when the severities of the recluse life had to be reduced to rule and system, and when a succession of occupants had to be found for the vacant anchorholds, ordinary human nature revolted from these unnatural austerities, and the common sense of mankind easily granted a tacit dispensation from them; and the recluse life was speedily toned down in practice to a life which a religiously-minded person, especially one who had been wounded and worsted in the battle of life, might gladly embrace and easily endure.