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 characteristicof the present age. Long-accepted standards are being questioned andhitherto unchallenged rules of conduct submitted to searching criticism.History shows us that our present social system is only a phase in humandevelopment, and we turn to a study of the past, confident that a clearerinsight into the social standards and habits of life prevalent in pastages will aid us in a better estimation of the relative importance ofthose factors of change we find around us to-day.
Monasticism during the ten centuries between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1500exhibits phases of vital significance for the mental and moral growth ofWestern Europe. However much both the aims and the tone of life of themembers of the different religious orders varied, monasticism generallyfavoured tendencies which were among the most peaceful and progressive ofthe Middle Ages. For women especially the convent fostered some of thebest sides of intellectual, moral and emotional life. Besides this it wasfor several centuries a determining factor in regard to women’s economicstatus.
The woman-saint and the nun are however figures the importance of whichhas hitherto been little regarded. The woman-saint has met with scanttreatment beyond that of the eulogistic but too often uncritical writer ofdevotional works; the lady abbess and the literary nun have engrossed theattention of few biographers. The partisan recriminations of theReformation period are still widely prevalent. The saint is thrust asideas a representative of[Pg viii] gross superstition, and the nun is looked upon asa slothful and hysterical, if not as a dissolute character. She is stillthought of as those who broke with the Catholic Church chose to depicther.
The fact that these women appeared in a totally different light to theircontemporaries is generally overlooked; that the monk and the nun enjoyedthe esteem and regard of the general public throughout a term borderin