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WOMAN UNDER MONASTICISM.




  London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
  AVE MARIA LANE.
  Glasgow: 263, ARGYLE STREET.

  Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
  New York: MACMILLAN AND CO.




  WOMAN UNDER MONASTICISM


  CHAPTERS ON SAINT-LORE AND CONVENT LIFE
  BETWEEN A.D. 500 AND A.D. 1500


  BY LINA ECKENSTEIN.


  'Quia vita omnium spiritualium hominum sine litteris mors est.'
                                    ACTA MURENSIS MONASTERII.


  CAMBRIDGE:
  AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
  1896

  [_All Rights reserved._]




  Cambridge:
  PRINTED BY J. & C. F. CLAY,
  AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.




  TO MY FRIENDS
  KARL AND MARIA SHARPE PEARSON.




PREFACE.


The restlessness, peculiar to periods of transition, is a characteristic
of the present age. Long-accepted standards are being questioned and
hitherto unchallenged rules of conduct submitted to searching criticism.
History shows us that our present social system is only a phase in human
development, and we turn to a study of the past, confident that a clearer
insight into the social standards and habits of life prevalent in past
ages will aid us in a better estimation of the relative importance of
those factors of change we find around us to-day.

Monasticism during the ten centuries between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1500
exhibits phases of vital significance for the mental and moral growth of
Western Europe. However much both the aims and the tone of life of the
members of the different religious orders varied, monasticism generally
favoured tendencies which were among the most peaceful and progressive of
the Middle Ages. For women especially the convent fostered some of the
best sides of intellectual, moral and emotional life. Besides this it was
for several centuries a determining factor in regard to women's economic
status.

The woman-saint and the nun are however figures the importance of which
has hitherto been little regarded. The woman-saint has met with scant
treatment beyond that of the eulogistic but too often uncritical writer of
devotional works; the lady abbess and the literary nun have engrossed the
attention of few biographers. The partisan recriminations of the
Reformation period are still widely prevalent. The saint is thrust aside
as a representative of gross superstition, and the nun is looked upon as
a slothful and hysterical, if not as a dissolute character. She is still
thought of as those who broke with the Catholic Church chose to depict
her.

The fact that these women appeared in a totally different light to their
contemporaries is generally overlooked; that the monk and the nun enjoyed
the esteem and regard of the general public throughout a term bordering on
a thousand years is frequently forgotten. Even at the time of the
Reformation, when religious contentions were at their height, the nun who
was expelled from her home appeared deserving of pity rather than of
reproach to her more enlightened contemporaries. As part of an institution
that had outlived its purpose she was perhaps bound to pass away. But the
work she had done and the aims for which she had striven contributed their
share in formulating the new standards of life. The attitude of mind which
had been harboured and cultivated in the cloister, must be reckoned among
the most civilizing influences which have helped to develop mental and
moral strength in Western Europe.

The social value of cloistered life in itself may be disputed. To the
Protestant of the 16th century a profession which involved estrangement
from family ties appeared altogether harmful. Moreover monasteries and
religious houses were bound up in the reformer's mind with the supremacy
of Rome from which he was striving hard to shake himself free. Wherever
the breach with Rome was effected the old settlements were dissolved and
their inmates were thrust back into civic life. To men this meant much,
but it meant less to them than to women. In losing the possibility of
religious profession at the beginning of the 16th century, women lost the
last chance that remained to them of an activity outside the home circle.
The subjection of women to a round of domestic duties became more complete
when nunneries were dissolved, and marriage for generations afterwards was
women's only recognised vocation.

But even in some of these same Protestant countries where nunneries were
summarily dissolved, the resulting complete subjection of women has in
modern times been felt to have outlived its purpose. How far this
subjection was a needful stage of growth which has helped to develop a
higher standard