“The functions of the sacred ministry had always been the exclusive privilege of the men, and they alone were able to support the fatigues of husbandry and conduct the extensive estates which many convents had received from the piety of their benefactors.”
Men were necessary evils; the question was how to make their presence innocuous.
“It was conceived that the difficulty might be diminished if it could not be removed, and with this view some monastic legislators devised the plan of establishing double monasteries. In the vicinity of the edifice destined to receive the virgins who had dedicated their chastity to God, was erected a building for the residence of a society of monks or canons, whose duty it was to officiate at the altar and superintend the external ceremony of the community. The mortified and religious life to which they had bound themselves by the most solemn engagements was supposed to render them superior to temptation; and, to remove even the suspicion of evil, they were strictly forbidden to enter the inclosure of the women, except on particular occasions, with the permission of the superior, and in the presence of witnesses. But the abbess retained the supreme controul over the monks as well as the nuns; their prior depended on her choice, and was bound to regulate his conduct by her instructions.”
Double monasteries were very common in Ireland, and were in vogue in England during the first eight or nine centuries of the Christian era. Over these institutions it was always a woman who had supreme rule. No abbot could be persuaded to take charge of a community of nuns, so the abbess ruled over both monks and nuns.
“The whole together formed a sort of vast family, maternity being the natural form of authority—all the more so as the neophytes were often admitted with all their dependents, as was Cædmon, who entered Whitby with all belonging to him, including a child of three years old.”[12]
Abbesses were great people in Saxon times—princesses of royal blood, like St. Hilda, who was grand-niece to Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria. St. Ethelburga, who also lived in the seventh century, and became abbess of Brie, in the diocese of Meaux, was the daughter of a king of East Anglia; St. Ethelreda, who built Ely monastery, was a queen, and the daughter of a king; St. Werburga of Ely was the daughter of Wulfere, king of Mercia, and niece of Ethelred, who put her to rule over all the female religious houses. With her royal uncle’s aid, she founded Trentham and Hanbury in Staffordshire, and Wedon in Northamptonshire. There were great solemnities when she became a nun and entered the Abbey of Ely, of which St. Audry was then the head. Her qualities and character were celebrated in the following lines:—
“In beaute amyable she was equall to Rachell,
Comparable to Sara in fyrme fidelyte,
In sadnes and wysedom lyke to Abygaell:
Replete as Delbora with grace of prophecy,
Equyvalent to Ruth she was in humylyte,
In pulchrytude Rebecca lyke Hester in Colynesse,
Lyke Judyth in vertue and proued holynesse.”[13]
For an abbess the cloister rule was relaxed. She might come and go, and see whom she pleased. Her signature is to be found to the charters of the realm, and she had the right to assist in the deliberations of the national assemblies.
“In 694 abbesses were in so great esteem for their sanctity and prudence, that they were summoned to the Council at Becanceld (in Kent), and the names of five (not one abbot) subscribed to the constitutions there made.”
This is the first time they are mentioned as taking part in a synod. The Abbess Elfleda was present at a council held respecting the affairs of Wilfrid, Bishop of Leicester, early in the eighth century. She attended to represent her late brother, King Alcfrid, who died in 705, and who, in the matter of Bishop Wilfrid, had, she asserted, promised, on his death-bed, to stand by the decree of the Apostolic See.