According to the legend, St. Aldhelm tried his virtue by the same crucial experiments as those resorted to by some of the ardent devotees of the third century, concealing his motive in order that his humility might enjoy the benefit of undeserved reprobation. “Sancti Aldelmi Malmesburiensis, qui inter duas puellas, unam ab uno latere, alteram ab altero, singulis noctibus ut ab hominibus diffamaretur, a Deo vero cui nota fuerat conscientia ipsius et continentia copiosius in futurum remuneraretur, jacuisse describitur.”—Girald. Cambrens. Gemm. Eccles. Dist. II. cap. xv.
[388] Ecgberti Pœnitent. I. II. 3; IV. 2, 7, 8; V. 1-22.—Ejusd. Dialog, v. (Haddan & Stubbs, III. 406, 419-23).
[389] Epist. ad Geruntium.—Aldhelmi Opp. p. 83 (Ed. Oxon. 1844).
[390] Johan. PP. IV. Epist. iii.
[391] Bedæ Epist. II.
[392] Bonifacii Epist. 105.
[393] Can. 20 directs greater strictness with regard to visitors, “unde non sint sanctimonialium domicilia turpium confabulationum, commessationum, ebrietatum, luxuriantiumque cubilia.” Can. 28 orders that nuns after taking the veil shall not wear lay garments; and can. 29 that clerks, monks, and nuns shall not live with the laity. (Spelman. Concil. I. 250-4.—Haddan & Stubbs, III. 369, 374.)
This demoralization of the nunneries is not to be wondered at when Boniface, in reproving Ethelbald, King of Mercia, for his evil courses, could say, “Et adhuc, quod pejus est, qui nobis narrant adjiciunt: quod hoc scelus maxime cum sanctis monialibus et sacratis Deo virginibus per monasteria commissum sit.” This sacrilegious licentiousness, indeed, would seem almost to have been habitual with the Anglo-Saxon reguli for Boniface instances the fate of Ethelbald’s predecessor Ceolred and of Osred of Northumbria who had both came to an untimely end in consequence of indulgence in similar evil courses.—Bonifacii Epist. 19.
[394] Concil. Calchuth. can. 15, 16 (Haddan & Stubbs, III. 455-6).
[395] Haddan & Stubbs, Councils, etc., III. 493.