“a virgin was not permitted to leave the house or monastery except for special reason, and no one had access to her but bishop or priest.”
But this was subject to variation, for in the Roman Church, about the fourth century, we read of “holy virgins” frequenting the public baths, for which they were blamed by Cyprian. A male or female devotee could, at any time, return to the world and marry.[20]
The injunctions made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries show that a great deal of latitude was permitted to nuns. It was not until the sixteenth century that they were rigidly confined to the cloister.[21] In the Middle Ages they were not much more under restraint, in the matter of visiting, than girls in boarding-schools and colleges at the present day. They were not to go out without express permission, or to wander from house to house when they went into the neighbouring city. Sometimes it was enjoined that they should only go to places from which they could return the same day, and at other convents they were permitted to remain out one night. In one case they were not to go “beyond the vill except from great and lawful cause; in pairs and in nun’s habit.”
The Superior of the convent of St. Helen’s, London, was admonished to be circumspect, and not to let women have the keys of the postern door, “for there is moche comyng in and oute at unlefull tymys.” That there should be any coming and going of this promiscuous kind shows how much latitude was allowed in religious houses.
Anchoresses were under stricter rules, and had less to do with the outer world.
“An anchoress must not become a schoolmistress, nor turn her anchoress-house into a school for children. Her maiden may, however, teach any little girl concerning whom it might be doubted whether she should learn among boys, but an anchoress ought to give her thoughts to God only.”[22]
The directions to the women attending on the anchoresses show how in the thirteenth century, when these rules were framed, personal cleanliness was still regarded as among the errors to be avoided, or at least a luxury to be renounced.
“Let no man see them unveiled, nor without hood. Let them look low. They ought not to kiss, nor lovingly embrace any man, neither of their acquaintance nor a stranger, nor to wash their head, nor to look fixedly on any man, nor to romp nor frolic with him.”
But the anchoresses themselves have permission to wash “whensoever it is necessary, as often as ye please.” They were enjoined to occupy themselves with useful and charitable work. “Assist with your own labour, as far as ye are able, to clothe yourselves and your domestics as St. Jerome teacheth.”
In 1534 the Archbishop of York wrote, among other things, the following injunction to the convent of Synningthwaite:—