¹ All the manuscripts and versions of the work are carefully described in the articles by Mr. G. C. Macaulay in the Modern Language Review, Vol. ix, passim. It is Mr. Macaulay's opinion that the French version is the original, and that the Latin version is a late translation. The nomenclature which he uses for the various manuscripts will be reproduced here. The earliest manuscript, B (of about 1230, twenty years earlier than N, G, T, and C), is the most correct, but also the most interpolated. He prints collations of all the thirteenth-century copies, and the complete text of the nineteen passages added in B, some of which are reproduced in later manuscripts. N is the only copy in print (ed. Morton, Camden Society, 1852). I possess a rotograph of parts of the unique French text—an early fourteenth-century manuscript.—G gives extracts only.

² Monasticon Anglicanum, London, 1821, iii, pp. 422 ff. By the kindness of my friend Miss Deanesly of Newnham College, I possess a copy of the same charter from the Westminster Liber Niger Quaternus, f. 125—a collection of documents made at the abbey 1466–85, from one of 1408–11 (see The MSS. of Westminster Abbey, by J. A. Robinson and M. R. James, Cambridge, 1909).

³ The grant is made “in the time of Henry I” by Abbot Herebert and Prior Osbert de Clare, with the consent of Gilbert the Universal, Bishop of London. The latter was bishop between 1127 and 1134, as is generally supposed, though Wright notes that some authorities put Gilbert's death at 1138 or 1139 (Biographia Literaria, Anglo-Norman period, London, 1846, p. 103). It is generally accepted as having taken place on the way to Rome, August 10, 1134, as is recorded in the necrology of Auxerre, where he had been head of the schools before coming to London (see Histoire littéraire de la France, xi, p. 236). The confusion perhaps arose because after his death there was a vacancy in his see till 1141. The dates formerly given for Herebert's abbacy were 1121–40, but Dr. Robinson has lately shown that his successor, Gervase (natural son of King Stephen, who was crowned December 26, 1135) was “already abbot in 1138, if not sooner” (History of Westminster Abbey by John Flete, Notes and Documents relating to Westminster Abbey, No. 2, Cambridge, 1909, p. 142). The letters of Osbert of Clare show that he was exiled before 1123, and was “proscriptos” in 1133. He may have been back during 1127–28, and was back as Prior in 1134. Dr. Robinson puts the foundation of Kilburn in 1134, but it seems difficult to be certain on this point, considering that Gilbert the Universal, if he died abroad August, 1134 (as Dr. Robinson believes) must have left England early in the year, and he granted a second charter in connection with Kilburn—“Cum inter nos et abbatem Westmonasteriensem et conventum quaestio verteretur super subjectione et jurisdictione Cellae de Kilebourne” (No. iii in Dugdale). See Dr. Robinson's article on Osbert (Church Quarterly Review, July, 1909, pp. 437–54), and the latest volume in the Notes (The Monks of Westminster, by the Archdeacon, E. H. Pearce, Cambridge, 1916, p. 42). Some of Osbert's letters, in abridged texts, have been printed by R. Anstruther, Caxton Society, 1846. Among those unedited may be some of great interest for the present hypothesis, for Miss M. Bateson notes that Osbert was a correspondent of the Kilburn nuns (Mediaeval England, London, 1904, p. 91—the reference which first brought Kilburn to my notice).

⁴ The most complete account of its history will be found in J. J. Park's History of Hampstead, London, 1814. An article in the Transactions of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society, 1904–5, pp. 90–101, contributes nothing. The site of the Priory has now been absorbed in London, but a hundred years ago it was still to be distinguished, and two hundred years ago there were still fragments to be seen of the building. Some trifling relics have been excavated on the site, of which the most interesting is a brass showing the head of a prioress. The wimple is said to be unique (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1885–7, 2nd Series, vol. xi, p. 23). Until a late date the locality seems to have been distinctly rustic; it was five miles from London (London and Middlesex Archæological Society, 1883, pp. 273–7). Its literary associations have been famous: Goldsmith perhaps wrote some works here, and Keats first recited to a friend the Ode to a Nightingale in the “Kilburn meadows.”

⁵ The anchoresses are addressed as young often (Morton, p. 56, etc.) ; as three in a passage never lacking (Morton, p. 116, see Macaulay, p. 157, Fr. f. 22v) ; and they are spoken of as of noble birth in another passage always present (Morton, p. 356, Macaulay, p. 328, Fr. f. 57v). The extended description of their circumstances given by N (Morton, p. 192), which repeats these details, falls in a gap in the French text, and is not entirely reproduced in any other copy (Macaulay, p. 159). B, as we shall see, had good reason for omitting it, and has only by inadvertence preserved the personal references noted above; T gives the information as to the stir caused by the maidens' retirement, as it is given in N, and adds the details as to their high birth and youth in other language that seems chosen for the sake of alliteration (this copy has, in general, Northern peculiarities). The general statement as to the material ease of the sisters' circumstances, with which N begins this passage, is repeated by C. The fact that so much of the information given by N in this important paragraph is confirmed from one source or another, seems to show that N is here giving the original text, and to guarantee the accuracy of one further piece of information here given, for which N is our only authority (see infra, p. 482).

⁶ Op. cit., p. 87. Dr. Robinson is inclined to doubt Flete's information, principally because of the lack of provision for prayers for Queen Matilda in the foundation (C. Q. R., p. 353). Her anniversary was however kept at Westminster (see the Customary of the abbey—compiled about 1266—printed by the Henry Bradshaw Society in company with the related Customary of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, 1904, p. xxvii); and the nuns of the Ancren Riwle, as we shall see, kept the anniversaries of their patrons. It should be noted that Matilda died in 1118, and Kilburn, according to Dr. Robinson's dating, was not founded for sixteen years. Some of her “domicellae,” however, might at that time still be “puellae,” since they might have served her as children, according to the custom of sending children to be reared at court. She lived, as it were, across the way from the abbey for many years at the end of her life (William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Rolls Series, 1889, ii, p. 494), and the maidens may have come to the attention of Abbot Herebert when at the palace. Widmore has already seen reason to believe that he was in close connection with the court (History of the Church of St. Peter, Westminster, London, 1751, p. 22). Dr. Robinson notes that Osbert of Clare (whom he considers to have been the moving spirit in the foundation of Kilburn) was “in 1121 of sufficient importance for the king to interfere with his plans” (C. Q. R., p. 339). The Ancren Riwle does not necessarily imply extreme youth for the anchoresses. N uses the terms “in the blossom of your youth,” and T the words “young of years.” A medieval commentary describes the age of Christ at the Resurrection as “aetas juvenalis” (C. Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, London, 1896, ii, p. xix, n.). Persons younger than twenty were not generally admitted to monastic vows (for Cluny, see Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Latinae, clxxxix, c. 1036).

⁷ It may be that the term “inclusa” was sometimes applied to any nuns who were hound by vow not to leave their house, whether they were confined in solitude—more or less complete—such as is the case in the anchorage of the Riwle or not. It is hard to tell the meaning of the term as applied to the first nuns of Sopwell Priory, for example (a cell of St. Alban's—see De Gestis Abbatum, Rolls Series, 1867, i, pp. 80–2). About 1140 two women who had lived in a wood were given a more regular establishment by the Abbot of St. Alban's, who “added others, and gave them the Rule of St. Benedict,” as Sopwell Priory. The number “inclusarum” was not to exceed thirteen, and “easdem sub clave et sera, ac sigillo Abbatis, qui pro tempore erit, decrevit ibidem includendas.” This ceremony suggests the life of anchorites who, according to the Rule of Anchorites by Grimlaic (Migne, cm, cc. 573 ff.)—a work certainly influential for the Riwle—were to be formally sealed in their cells. However, no further information is forthcoming from any quarter which would show the Sopwell nuns to have been dedicated to solitude. In 1338 they were not solitaries (De Gestis, ii, pp. 511 f.). The writer in the Victoria County History (Hertfordshire, iv, pp. 422 f.) believes the nunnery to have been founded in recompense for removing the women from the monastery (St. Alban's had been a double house), and he also notes a confusion in the records between Sopwell and Markyate. The latter Priory was dedicated in 1145 as a cell of St. Paul's, but it had been in close connection with St. Alban's. It was founded by “St. Christina of Markyate,” perhaps the most famous anchoress of her time, who had lived in solitude under the protection of a hermit Roger, a monk of St. Alton's (see De Gestis, i, pp. 95 ff.). It is certain that in later times Markyate was not a house of enclosed nuns, from incidents when the bishop visited it to explain the statute of Boniface VIII, “De Claustura Monialium” (V. C. H., Bedfordshire, i, p. 359.—The Cluniac nunnery of Marcigny was at this time famous throughout the world, and one of its most noteworthy features was the fact that all its inmates had made the unusually strict vow of never crossing the threshold of the house. Some of them were vowed to a stricter life in cells as “anchoretae,” and it appears to be only these who are called “inclusae,” (see M. Marnier, Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, Paris, 1614, pip. 455 ff., 491 ff.; J. H. Pignot, Histoire de Vordre de Cluny, Paris, 1868, ii, pp. 31 ff.). “Inclusa” is also the term used throughout the letter of St. Aelred to his sister, which has always been taken as describing a life similar to that described in the Riwle (Migne, xxxii, cc. 1451 ff.).

⁸ The case of well known anchorites who were enclosed in parish churches may have created a preconception in many readers of the Riwle that the same was true of the women there described. As a matter of fact the “church” of the Riwle may easily be that belonging exclusively to the sisters' own establishment. We have seen that the “heremitorium” of Kilburn is called an “ecclesia,” and the same term is applied to the monastery of Westminster itself in the foundation charter of Kilburn. Both for Kilburn and the abbey, the term that is applied to the personnel is “conventus.” It would appear to be a sign of exclusive possession by the anchoresses of the church in which they are enclosed, that they seem to have chosen the dedication of their altars (Morton, p. 18).—The Gilbertine order took its rise at about the time of the establishment of Kilburn in a “church anchorage” of much the same type as that described in the Riwle and in the records of Kilburn. Gilbert of Sempringham enclosed the first seven Gilbertine nuns (village maidens), not then expecting they would again come out, or that more would join them (Dugdale, vii, p. xix). This he tells us himself, in the Gilbertine Rule, and his contemporary biographer writes: “Hoc modo constructis rite domibus religioni competentibus, et claustro circumquaque clauso, inclusit ancillas Christi solitarie victuras, sub parieite ecclesiae beati Andreae apostoli in vico de Sempringham, ad aquilonalem partem … fenestra tamen patente, per quam necessaria intromitterentur” (ibid., p. vii). Gilbert carried the key of their enclosure always with him. This sounds as if these women were enclosed in a parish church (two of which were in Gilbert's patronage, as Lord of the manor), and as if they were to live in solitude. The presence of a cloister need not presuppose elaborate monastic buildings; the famous contemporary hermit, Godric of Finchale, built a cloister in his tiny hermitage (see his Life and Miracles, written, by Reginald of Durham at the request of St. Aelred of Rievaux—therefore before 1166—Surtees Society, 1845, p. 153).

⁹ It is obvious that the nuns of the Riwle enjoy considerable community life, and such is provided for in the Rule of Grimlaic, already mentioned. He describes anchorites living under the protection of a monastery, and he prefers that several should be living together. Peter Damian, in describing the life of hermits, says that if two are living together one is to be the superior (Migne, cxlv, c. 350), and it may be (especially considering the fact that they were living under the protection of a person of the other sex, as we shall see) that one of the three women put in Kilburn was the superior; such an arrangement would appear necessary for executive and legal purposes—in any case if the number in the hermitage were increased. The Carthusians (who, a half century before, had developed what was to be till the end of the middle ages the most successful plan for pursuing the eremetical life in community) lived under priors, as did the group of solitaries among whom lived (in subjection to Cluny) the anchorite Gilbert, to whom Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, addressed his epistle on the solitary life (Migne, clxxxix, cc. 40, 89 ff., 233 ff., 360 ff.). Peter and his friends the Carthusians will be seen later to have a connection with the Riwle. Some communities of hermits in England are listed by Miss R. M. Clay in her Hermits and Anchorites of England, “The Antiquary's Books,” London, 1914, passim, but there is no record that any were perpetuated. Cardinal Gasquet notes that a group of anchorites lived at Shrewsbury (The Nun's Rule, “The King's Classics,” London, 1907, p. xvi), and the records of their existence there seem to cover a considerable period (see The History of Shrewsbury, by Owen and Blakeway, London, 1825, i, p. 315 n., ii, p. 475). He also notes the Carthusian life as an analogy for that described in the treatise.

¹⁰ See infra, p. 492. However the service for the dead seems to have been said by most religious houses daily—even by the Cistercians (see William of Malmesbury, ii, p. 383).

¹¹ The presence in the French text of the reference to the “anniuersiaires de voz chiers amys” shows that a connection with specific benefactors may be intended by the reference to the anchoresses' living by alms, which is less specific than the English, and in part defective : “leo apeele honte touz iours estre tenu en despit et mendier sicome vn harlot, si mestier est, sa vitaille, et ses viures daltre almoigne, sicoma vous … (defective for perhaps a line at the top of the page) … ent dangier dascune (?) ascu … foiz qi porreit estre votre serf …” (f. 57 f.). The English text reads: “—beggen, ase on harlot, it neod is, his , and beon beodesmon, ase , leoue sustren, & ofte daunger of swuche yi þet muhte beon ower þrel” (p. 356).—It may be noted that when a French word occurs in the English text, it is practically always that which is found in the French version.

¹² The first statement is found in N and C, the second is found only in N (see supra, p. 476 n.). As is explained earlier, the rest of the information supplied by N in this paragraph is so well substantiated, that there seems every reason to believe that, for the whole description, N furnishes the original reading.—It should be mentioned that the admonition against “gathering” (p. 286) was a stock feature in the contemporary rules for anchorites. It occurs in St. Aelred's letter to his sister (c. 1452) and also in Peter's letter to Gilbert (c. 89 ff.).—One of the conspicuous characteristics of the Carthusians, as described by their friend Peter (c. 994), was their refusal to accept more than enough for their bare sustenance, and Gilbert of Sempringham, at the beginning of his order, was reluctant to receive endowments (Dugdale, p. viii).

¹³ The three corrodies appear in the charter of Gervase, who also grants a charter confirming the possession by the nuns of the land in Knightsbridge granted by Herebert (“sicut eas inde saysivit frater noster Osbertus de Clara”—a clause that gives Dr. Robinson one of his reasons for assigning to Osbert a principal interest in Kilburn). No sign appears in these charters of Gervase's of the sum of money granted earlier or of the land in Southwark, and it is difficult in all respects to know whether Gervase has altered the endowment of the house. He gives no sign, that his charter relating to Knightsbridge is a confirmation, and it may be that his other charter also merely confirms what had been customary, for the foundation charter is sufficiently vague in its reference to the “duo beneficia” to make it possible that three corrodies were really covered by the phrase. Flete says that Abbot Herebert gave the women of Kilburn “certas terras, annonas, et corrodia quaedem cum redditibus de monasterio” (p. 87). It would be natural that three corrodies should be given to three persons, and as it stands the charter seems to divide the spiritual benefits of the first “beneficium” between Westminster and Fécamp. All memory of Fécamp seems lost from the charter of Gervase, but the corrody of Ailmar appears as the first in the list. The last is one “which by their charter they had before,” the second “the corrody of Abbot Gilbert.” —From the latter mention Dr. Robinson believes that the house of Kilburn was planned in Crispin's time (Gilbert Crispin, Notes, No. 3, Cambridge, 1911, p. 34) : Archdeacon Pearce (p. 41) is misled by it to believe that the corrody was given by Gilbert (who died about 1118).—The twelfth-century hall of the Abbot of Westminster still exists (The Abbot's House at Westminster, by J. A. Robinson, Notes, No, 4, Cambridge, 1911, p. 4).

¹⁴ Monastic houses sometimes made definite provision for the food of servants of pensioners. For example, Vaudey Abbey at its foundation in 1147 was to give corrodies to the founder and his wife, as well as food to their two servants as for two servants of the house (see the account by Miss A. M. Cooke of the settlement of the Cistercians in England, English Historical Review, viii, p. 664). Whalley Abbey in the latter fourteenth century gave to an anchoress and her two servants, bread, beer, and a weekly sum of money, as well as faggots, etc. (see the History of Whalley, by T. D. Whitaker, Blackburn, 1800, i, p. 60). It would certainly seem that the endowment of Kilburn would have provided for all the wants of the hermitage, if the numbers were not increased, and the silence of the documents would make it appear that they had not been.

¹⁵ The French here has “voz plus chiers amis” (f. 68), which may recall the terms used in connection with the anniversaries (supra, p. 481, n.). The recension to be described later, which was apparently written for Kilburn, uses the indefinite “good men and women” (Macaulay, p. 471). This is the text found in B.

¹⁶ According to the charter of Gervase they received bread, beer, “coquina,” wine, mead, and “pittances,” “cum uno tantummodo clareto, sc. pro anima Gilberti abbatis.” The Customary states that they received four gallons of wine on festivals and anniversaries when the convent received it, and beer also when the convent had it; four “panes” daily, and they had the liberty of choosing “utrum per diem velint octo fercula, vel hiis ad certum tempus de coquinario integram et equivalentem alicujus piscis recipere porcionem” (pp. 73, 79, 98). This sounds like four corrodies (see J. W. Clark, The Customs of Augustinian Canons, Cambridge, 1897, p. 216; and Obedientiary Rolls of St. Swithin's, Winchester, ed. G. W. Kitchin, Hampshire Record Society, 1892, pp. 159 ff.). Some of the corrodies quoted by Kitchin are received “in aula domini Prioris” (p. 161).

¹⁷ Dugdale, v, p. 619.

¹⁸ He says this in connection with what he has to say about gluttony, staring, etc., etc. (see Morton, pp. 50, 68, etc.).—The French gives the text of p. 416 in a slightly superior reading (f. 67v).

¹⁹ It is perhaps noteworthy, in view of the injunction (p. 416) given by the author of the Riwle against keeping cattle, that at the Reformation Kilburn Priory seems to have possessed only one beast—a horse “of the color of black” (which, at least in the later days, when the favor of Westminster did not appear to be so personal as in the earlier, would doubtless be necessary for fetching the supplies from the abbey). Nevertheless the nuns cultivated forty acres of land in Willesdon. The prejudice of the author against the keeping of cattle by anchoresses, lest they should thus be drawn into quarrels because of complaints as to injury done by their beasts, seems to be typical of his time. The monks of the eremetical order of Grandmont, founded just before this time, were allowed to keep no living creatures except bees, “que vicinos non ledunt” (W. Map, De Nugis Curialium, Anecdota Oxoniensia, xiv, 1914, p. 26). These monks were all inclusi.

²⁰ One of the many parallels which are to be seen between Kilburn and the nucleus of Sempringham appears at this point. Gilbert took the title of “master”—one of the points in which he imitated Robert of Arbrissel, the famous hermit who in 1101 established the famous double house at Fontevraud (see Migne, clxii; Fontevrault et ses Monuments, by Édouard, Paris, 1873). It was also the title of the head of the Templars, whose Rule—framed under the influence of St. Bernard of Clairvaux—was approved in 1128 (see the edition by H. de Curzon, Société de l'Histoire de France, 1886). The date of the beginning at Sempringham can be put 1131–5. The contemporary life of St. Gilbert mentions “the time of Henry I,” and we know that Gilbert returned from Lincoln about 1130 (Rose Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, London, 1901, p. 10).—It should be noted that the V. C. H. (Bedfordshire, i, p. 539) speaks of a “warden or master as usual in small nunneries.”—The question of Godwyn's authorship of the Riwle is now being investigated, with promising results.

²¹ Le Coulteux, Anuales Ordinis Cartusiensis, Montreuil, 1888, i, p. 302.

²² Migne, cliii, cc. 685, 755 f. It may be noted that St. John the Baptist was the special patron of hermits and anchorites all through this period, as may be seen by reference to Miss Clay's Hermits and Anchorites of England. The famous hermit Godric of Finchale, already mentioned as contemporary with the first sisters of Kilburn, saw St. John in person take him under his protection, and Godric's chapel—to which people from all over England resorted—was dedicated to the hermit saint, though his inner oratory, where no one might enter except himself, was dedicated to the Virgin (see Surtees Soc., op. cit., passim).

²³ Gervase of Canterbury, in his catalogue of religious houses (written after 1199), thus describes the order and dedication: “Prioratus Keleburne, Sanctae Mariae, Moniales Nigrae” (Opera, Rolls Series, 1880, ii, p. 426). This tells us very little definitely. “Black nuns” was the phrase often applied to Benedictine women, but the women of Kilburn were often in the records called “moniales” and the habit of Augustinian canons was black. A similar careless statement which seems to arise from the connection of Kilburn with Westminster is the reference to the “abbes of Kylbourne” in a fifteenth-century parish record (E. E. T. S., No. 125, p. 152).—The full document cited by Park as first giving the title “Augustinian” to the house is printed by Thorpe, Registrum Roffense, London, 1769, pp. 264 ff. The bishop of Rochester here appropriates to the nuns a church because of their excessive poverty, which he has investigated and found due to the duties of hospitality to which their position on the highway exposes them, without fault on their part. He speaks in the beginning of “religiose mulieres, priorissa et conventus monasterii monialium de Kilbourne, ordinis sancti Augustini, London. dioc.” Elsewhere he always uses the indefinite phrase “religiose mulieres.” At this time Kilburn seems to have received new vitality.

²⁴ Fasciculus J. W. Clark Dicatus, Cambridge, 1909, pp. 186–217. See also K. H. Schaefer, Kanonissenstifter im deutschen Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1907, which, though it deals specially with the very peculiar development of canonesses in Germany, gives some details of them elsewhere. Dr. Frere, in reply to a letter from me on the subject of Kilburn, writes as follows of the use of the term “canoness” in its connection: “The word is merely applied to people who could not otherwise be described… . There is nothing available on the subject of English canonesses: they were very few and obscure. … In any case, whatever is the influence behind, the women are clearly recluses, not forming a regular Order, not professed virgins, for they have no ring, p. 420 . . the very indefiniteness of all this seems to point to the 12th century rather than the 13th.”

²⁵ See J. Lanteri, Eremi Sacrae Augustinianae, Rome, 1874. The term that is usually applied to the nuns of Kilburn in the charters is “ancilla Christi,” a phrase of very long descent and sometimes indefinite meaning (see Dictionnaire de l'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. Cabrol et LeClercq, Paris, 1907). It is used for the nuns of Fontevraud, Marcigny, and Sempringham, and appears in the office for enclosing an anchorite in the York Manual (Clay, p. 193). It is apparently rendered as “mayde cristes” by Thomas de Hales in his Love Rune (E. E. T. S., No. 49, p. 93).—As a matter of fact, the Pope in 1148 decreed that “sanctimoniales & mulieres, quae canonicae nominantur, & irregulariter vivunt, juxta beatorum Benedicti & Augustini rationem, vitam suam in melius corrigant & emendant” (Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Collectio, Venice, 1776, xxi, c. 714).

²⁶ The hermits about Cluny owed “obedientiam” to the monastery (Peter the Venerable, loc. cit.), and if rom such arrangements grew up the use of the title “obedientia” to designate cells. The character of some of such establishments may be understood by Peter's complaint that he cannot send to his friend Guigo of Carthusia a certain book because it has been eaten by a bear in one of their “obedientiae” (c. 103). The isolation of these retreats evidently brought on moral dangers, for Abelard refers to the irregular life lived in “obedientiae” (Opera, Migne, clxxviii, c. 265).—Roger, the hermit under whom Christina of Markyate began her religious life, was a monk of St. Alban's giving his “obedientiam” to the monastery (De Gestis, p. 97), and it would be expected that Godwyn, the master of Kilburn, would be a monk of Westminster. He is, however, nowhere so designated in the records, and we shall see that in 1231 the master of Kilburn is a secular priest. Almost anyone might occupy a hermitage as a beadsman of the abbey. Grimlaic makes provision for outsiders becoming anchorites under the protection of a monastery (c. 596).

²⁷ See Morton, p. 22, French text, f. 5, J. W. Clark, op. cit., pp. xcvii, cii.

²⁸ This is to me the most plausible interpretation of this difficult passage. Mr. Macaulay has apparently understood it somewhat more literally, though he evidently finds it uncertain (p. 463). I do not offer my suggestion as a final one, though the evidence drawn from Kilburn would seem to make it very satisfactory. In any case the. rigid identification with early Dominican convents, made by Father MacNabb (Modern Language Review, xi, p. 4), seems impossible. Later research may clear up this reference. For Shrewsbury recluses living in community, see supra, p. 481, n.

²⁹ See Flete, p. 101; Widmore, pp. 37, 70.

³⁰ Park makes a flagrant error when he refers (p. 171) to the prioress as the “senior person” who is to be put over the nuns, according to the foundation charter. This “seniorem idoneum” whom the convent of maidens are to choose after the death of Godwyn, is certainly represented by the “secular priest” of 1231.

³¹ In 1377 the bishop of Rochester states that the nuns wish to increase their numbers (see infra, p. 490, n).

³² It is certain that at times Sopwell held as many as nineteen nuns (V. C. H., p. 422).

³³ Carthusians did not originally leave their cells for mass every day (see Catholic Encyclopedia). Some statutes made about 1120 for a Carthusian house in Calabria recognize two classes there, “coenobitae,” and “anchoretae.” The latter at times leave their cells, though they are to preserve silence when so doing (Le Couteulx, i, p. 237). They even at times eat in the refectory, and the sisters of the anchorage may have done the same, though we have no information on the subject. The author, however, draws the line at their eating with guests “outside” (p. 412), though he says that there are anchoresses of his day who do so. They hear mass every day (p. 262).

³⁴ Though Mr. Macaulay generally confines himself to description and avoids generalizations and hypotheses, it is of interest for the theory here put forward of the connection of the additions of B with the original anchorage that he notes that some of the additions are “quite in the spirit of other passages in the Ancren Riwle.” He gives no opinion as to the origin of B, though he declares the new material to be interpolated.

³⁵ Le Couteulx, i, p. 348.

³⁶ Two incidents should be noted in this connection, though our evidence is not complete. We are told that the abbot who was deposed in 1213 was charged with incontinency, among other crimes. Widmore is inclined to doubt the charge (p. 34). Again, Sir Walter Besant relates (Westminster, London, 1895, p. 116) that the abbot and convent once all took refuge at Kilburn, because a prophet had prophesied a flood which would drown the abbey. No date or reference is given.

³⁷ Anglia, xxx, p. 116. See, for a refutation of a theory here propounded by Heuser, Modern Language Review, iv, pp. 433 f. Heuser seems to take it for granted that B was written for Wigmore Priory in Hereford—which procured it, as Mr. Macaulay shows, only about 1300 (p. 145).

³⁸ Polychronicon, Rolls Series, viii, 1865, p. 190; Peter of Blois, Opera, ed. J. A. Giles, 1847, I, p. 350 (a letter to Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, apparently on his accession). With William de Newburgh, (Historia Anglicana, ed. H. C. Hamilton, London, 1856, i, p. 121) compare W. Map (op. cit., p. 56). It is noted that the first mention of heresy in London occurs in 1210 (V. C. H., London, i, p. 185). For the Continental heretics and the controversial works they called forth, see Vacandard, Vie de St. Bernard, Paris, 1897, ii, pp. 209 ff., E. S. Davison, Some Precursors of St. Francis of Assisi, Columbia University dissertation, 1907, p. 29.

³⁹ E. Bishop, On the Origin of the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, London, 1904; The Bosworth Psalter, London, 1908, pp. 43 ff.

⁴⁰ C. Q. R., p. 349.

⁴¹ Our Lady's Dowry, London, 1875, 2nd ed., pp. 68, 251. He quotes from a correspondence of 1174–80 between Peter Cellenais and a monk of St. Allan's, in which a very general acceptance of the feast in England is implied. The principal evidence of its celebration in France comes from Fécamp, the confederate of Westminster (Vacandard, Revue des Questions historiques, lxi, pp. 166 ff.).

⁴² Printed E. E. T. S, No. xiii. I regret that I have no rotograph for the French at this point.

⁴³ See infra, pp. 507, 512, 536. The heroines of these legends address the Saviour in just the type of mystical devotion described in the Riwle in the abstract.

⁴⁴ C. Q. R., p. 339. J. H. Round, however, notes that earlier it is unsafe to take the name of Alfred as certainly English (Feudal England, London, 1895, p. 327). The same may be true of those involved here.—N tells us (p. 192) that the anchoresses were sisters by blood.

⁴⁵ See William of Malmesbury, op. cit., passim. Some circumstances seem to suggest that the nuns of Kilburn are, as it were, a special memorial to Edward. Gervase, in the charter already quoted, gave the corrody of Ailmar “for the good of his soul and for the soul of King Edward, as well as for all his successors”; and the same purpose is given (by Flete in his account of the foundation. At the time of the canonization of Edward, the nuns of Kilburn are given a confirmation of their benefits (Flete, p. 94). It should also be noted that when Edward III in 1353 grants the nuns of Kilburn exemption from all taxes, he calls their house “of the foundation of the king's progenitors” (Patent Rolls, Edward III, pp. 250, 539). His favor was probably procured by the effort of Simon de Langham, for this “most eminent of all our abbots” had a special affection for Kilburn (see Widmore, pp. 99, 187), and Edward III established a chantry at Kilburn for his soul (Thorpe, loc. cit.).

⁴⁶ Though they are not formally described as lay-sisters they are evidently given over to their superiors much as if they were such. In the first settlement at Sempringham the seven maidens were at first waited on by village women, until William, the first abbot of Rievaux (founded 1131), persuaded Gilbert to add lay-sisters who should be under a rule. When the Gilbertine rule was drawn up, the part for the lay-brothers merely copied the Cistercians, and in general the special development of the lay-brothers seems one of the contributions of the Cistercians at this time, though these were, of course, not their invention (see E. Hoffmann, Das Konversenmstitut des Cisterzienserordens, Freilburg, 1905). It was apparently a part of the unusually humane and successful treatment of the lay-brothers by the Cistercians that the sermons of St. Bernard were translated into the vernacular for their use—so early that there has been some discussion as to whether the French text might not be the original (see L. Bourgain, La Chaire française au XIIe siècle, Paris, 1879, pp. 187 ff.; Vacandard, i, p. 459). M. Demimuid in his Pierre le Vénérable (Paris, 1876, p. 269) notes the influence of the lay-brothers on the rise of vernacular literature.—It should be noted that at this time when lay members made an important element in so many orders, it was sometimes difficult to keep this part of the community contented. The order of Grandmont, already mentioned as inclusi, was nearly wrecked in the middle of the twelfth century by a resurrection of the lay-brothers, and the Gilbertines had serious trouble with a similar insurrection (see Walter Map, loc. cit.). The latter did not generally work with their laymen, as did the Cistercians, but it has been thought to be on account of offense to the lay-sisters that the nuns were forbidden to speak Latin. Peter the Venerable took care about the instruction of the lay-brothers of Cluny (Bourgain, p. 185).

⁴⁷ Heuser declares that no manuscript of the work can be localized at Tarente, where its composition was traditionally placed, and E. Jordan (Die mittelenglischen Mundarten, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, ii, p. 128) agrees, as does also F. Weick (Aussterben des Präfixes ge- im Englischen, Darmstadt, 1911, p. 93), who is led by the partial loss of the sense for the ge-, manifested in the Riwle, to decide that it must have had a “Mercische Urform,” which had been the conclusion of Heuser. Jordan comes near the truth (as shown by the present hypothesis) when he conjectures that the treatise was composed in Oxfordshire.—It is a fortunate circumstance that we have in the Poema Morale (put for its place-names very securely in Hampshire, and by its manuscripts no less surely before 1170) an excellent touchstone for the locality of the English text of the Riwle, if written at Tarente. It is probably the decisive factor actuating the opinions just quoted against a Dorset origin for the treatise. It ought also to be remembered when the traditional dating of the work after 1200 is considered.

⁴⁸ A thorough study of the language of the “Katherine group” has been made by H. Stodte (Ueber die Sprache und Heimat des Katherine-Gruppe, Göttingen, 1896). It is interesting that he notes one point of phonology found in the Group as also peculiar to London (p. 27), and a syntactical peculiarity is noted by the editor of the legends as like the usage of the “modern dialects of Middlesex and Wilshire” (E. Einenkel, E. E. T. S., No. 80, p. 135).

⁴⁹ Morsbach calls it “einen im ganzen südlichen Dialekt, der vom Mittellande beeinflusst ist” (Ueber den Ursprung der neuenglischen Schriftsprache, Heilbronn, 1888, p. 162), and Sir James Murray “more southern than anything else, with a slight midland admixture” (Encyclo. Brit., art. English Language, p. 594). E. Dölle has extended the study of the London dialect behind the period treated by Morsbach (Morsbach's Studien, xxxii, Zur Sprache Londons vor Chaucer), and E. Neufeldt makes a study equally interesting for our purposes in his Zur Sprache des Urkundenbuches von Westminster, Rostock dissertation, 1907 (this is the manuscript Faustina A III, from which Dugdale prints the Kilburn charters). All of Neufeldt's material is much earlier than our period, and Dölle's either much later or much earlier, except Group VII—charters of the time of Archbishop Theobald, 1142–60.—A peculiarity of the Westminster charters noted by Neufeldt (pp. 44, 92) is the almost consistent use of a-forms for the verb habban. They seem to predominate in the Riwle.

⁵⁰ Considering the early date of the material used, it is not strange that the Midland influence seen in the Proclamation and in the Riwle (which, though composed earlier, only exists in manuscripts written after 1230) is not yet visible in the documents examined by Dölle (p. 88). It should also be noted that the Riwle, in the use of u for A.-S. y, shows a more Western speech than the London dialect, as shown in the legal documents (Dölle, p. 26). However, cases are found in the Westminster charters (Neufeldt, p. 52), and in the Proclamation (Morsbach, p. 161–2), and the truth is that the cosmopolitan position of the city (which was ultimately strong enough to shift its dialect entirely) must have brought in an unusual number of speech mixtures. It is interesting to note in this connection that Heuser declares that the dialect of the Riwle is such a mixture that the title “South-Mercian” would suit it better than “Southern,” since so many exceptions have to be made if the latter title is used (p. 113). Morsbach, in listing the peculiarities of all the Middle English dialects in his Grammatik (Halle, 1896, i, p. 9), says: “Die Katherine-gruppe bildet eine gruppe für sieh.” It is possible that the mixture of dialect which does not appear in the earliest London legal documents, would be visible in literary performances of the same time. It is also barely possible that anything written at Kilburn (which, though so near the city, was at this time a very rustic situation) might show more of the local Middlesex peculiarities of speech—though our ignorance as to the origins of the scribes, author, and public of the treatise (even when we are sure of the place of its composition) must make any such hypothesis uncertain, especially since our only copies date from so long after the original copy.—It should be noted that Father MacNabb, in the article already mentioned, quotes from a letter of Mr. Macaulay (p. 5 n.), in winch the original dialect is spoken of as “Southwestern, with a tinge of Midland.” It would appear from Mr. Macaulay's statement made in his article and already quoted, that “Southwestern” here must be a scribal error for “Southern.”

⁵¹ See O. P. Behm, The Language of the Later Part of the Peterborough Chronicle, Göteborg, 1884, pp. v, 19, 20, 24, 57, 66; H. Meyer, Zur Sprache der jüngeren Teile der Chronik von Peterborough, Jena, 1889.

⁵² For example, most of the contents of Bodl. ms. 343 (History of the Holy Rood Tree, E. E. T. S., No. ciii, ed. Napier, p. ix).

⁵³ The phonological changes in the Riwle are briefly summarized by E. Buck, Transactions of the Philological Society, London, 1865, “The Grammatical Forms of Southern English (A. D., 1220–30) occuring in the Ancren Riwle,” p. 166. In addition to the philological works already cited, the following may be mentioned as giving valuable comparative data and full bibliographical references: Anecdota Oxoniensia, Old English Glosses, Oxford, 1900, and Some Points of English Orthography in the Twelfth Century, Academy, 1890, pp. 133 ff., both by Napier (the latter lists manuscripts transcribed in the twelfth century) ; W. Schlemilch, Beiträge zur Sprache und Orthographie Spätaltengl. Sprachdenkmäler der Übergangszeit (1000–1150), Morsbach's Studien, xxxiv (a very useful study for the present purposes, summarizing the results of most of the other philological investigations here noted). The study by E. A. Williams (Anglia., xxv, pp. 393 ff.) of the speech of the Codex Wintonensis, drawn up in the bishopric of Henry of Blois (1130–50), later to be mentioned as a person of interest for the Riwle (infra, pp. 5261), is also useful for its summaries of other contemporary dialects. It should he noted that Group VII of Dölle's study (written in the time of Archbishop Theobald, who is also of interest for the Riwle—see infra, p. 535 n.) shows (pp. 5, 54, etc.), the French influence on the orthography very strongly (ch for c, etc.), which is such a characteristic of the Riwle, and is cited occasionally in the dissertations. Group VII only once (p. 43) substitutes i- for the prefix (a sign of late dialect found consistently in the Riwle). Dölle notes, however, that legal documents are naturally conservative (p. 45), and the i- is found in some twelfth-century mss. (Academy, pp. 133 f.), and it even appears in the eleventh-century glosses (Anecdota, p. xxviii, in the work of a Kentish scribe). The Peterborough Chronicle derives much of its archaic appearance from its use of the prefix a matter of fact it does not make such difficult translation as the Riwle—but it alternates this with entire loss of the prefix, according to the Northern custom (Meyer, p. 86), and altogether the form of the prefix seems a matter determined more by the locality of composition than by the date. Liebermann prints a short original charter written before 1128 in the North, which shows traces of Anglo-French orthography and of Middle English forms and the use of the “W.-S. Schriftsprache” (Archiv, cxi, p. 284).

⁵⁴ For references see Schlemilch, p. 69.

⁵⁵ Opera, Rolls Semes, 1868, vi, pp. 177–8. I have pointed out in an article in the Romanic Review, ix, pp. 154 ff., which supplements the present one at many points, that our conception of the position of English at this time has been influenced by the fact that Giraldus, who speaks thus impersonally of English, was a Welshman, and that the fact that he and two others of the most outstanding writers of the time were Welsh probably had its influence in hampering the development of English as a medium for literature.—A use of isaid (showing the ge- worn down to i-) occurs in an English proverb quoted by Giraldus at p. 187. Part of one of his proverbs occurs in the Riwle (p. 268), and makes difficulty for the theory of a French original.

⁵⁶ See my article already mentioned, pp. 186 ff. Attempts have been made to attribute all these pieces to the same author—according to Einenkel, loc. cit., and in Anglia, v, pp. 265 ff., a woman (perhaps one of the three anchoresses).

⁵⁷ See W. Vollhardt, Einfluss der lateinischen geistlichen Litteratur …, Leipzig, 1888, p. 19. He refutes Einenkel's theory of the origin of these pieces.

⁵⁸ See Morsbach, Grammatik, i, pp. 9, et passim.

⁵⁹ R. Mattig (Die französischen Elemente im Alt- und Mittelenglischen, Marburg, 1910, p. 79) shows that half of the romance loanwords found in Middle English from 800 to 1258 are contributed by the Ancren Riwle.

⁶⁰ See the valuable article by Mr. Henry Bradley in the Cambridge History of English Literature, ii, p. 436 ff.

⁶¹ Romanic Review, loc. cit., p. 173.

⁶² Op. cit., p. 45. Reyner (Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, Douai, 1626, pp. 159–60) says that the order of Arrouaise came to England in 1112, that of Tyron in 1126, that of Savigny in 1124, the Premonstratensians (who were in Scotland in 1125) to England in 1146. The first Cistercian house was (built in 1128, hut the real strength of the Cistercian order began with the settlement of Rievaux directly from Clairvaux in 1131 (see Miss Cook's most valuable account of the Cistercian Settlement in the Eng. Hist. Rev., loc. cit.). The founders of Fontevraud, Tyron, Savigny, and Arrouaise had all been hermits.

⁶³ Migne, clxxviii, c. 213. For the dates of Heloise's letters see the Catholic Encyclopedia.

⁶⁴ A useful contemporary account of the Cistercians for our purposes is that of Ordericus Vitalis, Historiae Ecclesiasticae, ed. A. Le Prevost, Société de l'histoire de France, Paris, 1845, iii, p. 434 ff. Ordericus is a “black monk,” a Benedictine under the influence of Cluny, who gives, therefore, a somewhat sarcastic account of the “white monks.”

⁶⁵ The question of the color of the habit was a burning one at the time. The monks of Bec also assumed white, though the date is not known (Porée, i, p. 505), and the Premonstratensians wore it (explaining their choice by a miracle, Dugdale, vii, p. 859). The Gilbertines showed their complex origin by combining the two colors (Graham, p. 70). The author of the Riwle did the same (see MacNabb, p. 4).

⁶⁶ Ep. I.—It was put first in Bernard's collected letters because of the miracle connected with its composition, and a chapel existed on the site of the event, until after the Reformation. See Vacandard, I, Chap. vi, Demimuid, op. cit., etc. Barnard gave an Apologia for his attack on Cluny, which is really a second onslaught. It is dated by various scholars at dates ranging from 1119 to 1127 (the latter is that given by Miss Cooke, who gives an excellent summary of the causes of the Cistercian separation from the older Benedictines).

⁶⁷ This early use of the phrase is noteworthy. In my article on the Authorship of the Prick of Conscience I was not able to carry it back of Bonaventura (Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 15, p. 128).

⁶⁸ We have Thurstan's own narrative of the incident (Memorials of Fountains, Surtees Society, 1863, pp. 11 ff.). He was originally from St. Paul's, and was a special counsellor of religious women—as of Adela of Blois (whom he accompanied when she took the vows at Marcigny in 1120), and of Christina of Markyate (D. N. B., and the De Gestis, p. 100).

⁶⁹ We should probably not judge them all by the “new Pharisees” of Peter's letters, any more than we should judge all his own monks by the torpid Cluniacs sleeping against a wall all day, whom he also pictures (in his reformed statutes for Cluny, dated 1146, in which he begins by an eloquent discussion of the “movable” and “immovable” ordinances, Opera, cc. 1025 ff.). Bernard of Clairvaux, some time between 1131 and 1143 (Histoire littéraire, xii, p. 205), wrote his De Praecepto et Dispensatione, in which he also lays down the distinction between the two sorts of ordinances, much as Peter might Peter's arguments.—See also Peter's letters, c. 418 f., for abuses at Cluny.

⁷⁰ Migne, clxxxii, c. 900.

⁷¹ See Newman's Lives of the English Saints, London, 1845, No. 1 (Stephen Harding), p. 54, for a discussion of the “frock” and the “cowl,” and Migne's note on the letter to Robert.

⁷² See Gilbert Crispin, p. 27. Almost half of the houses of Savigny were in England (Cooke, p. 669). For their habit, see Dugdale, v, p. 246.—See Die Winteney Version der Regula S. Benedicti, ed. Schröer, Halle, 1888, p. 111.

⁷³ He remarks on the shortness and scantiness of the Carthusian garments (c. 944). The number of the Cistercian garments was also restricted; see William of Malmesbury (p. 382), and Peter's second letter (c. 328). So were their kinds of bed coverings (ibid., p. 113).

⁷⁴ Vacandard observes: “A l'inverse de saint Bernard, Pierre le Vénérable se montre sérieusement préoccupé de la santé de ses moines (cp. Lib. i, ep. 28). Volontiers il prendrait pour devise ce mot du poète: Mens sana in corpore sano” (i, p. 129). Peter shows here another striking likeness to the author of the Riwle (cp. p. 422).

⁷⁵ See E. Bishop, “The Origin of the Cope as a Church Vestment,” Dublin, Review, Jan. 1897, p. 24. A “cope” was generally the particular mark of a Canon—see Clark, p. lxxix, and Ordericus Vitalis, iii, p. 369; “Clerici et episcopi nigris cappis induti erant. Monachi quoque et abbates nigris nihilominus cucullis amicti erant.” Like all the costumes in question, it was also, however, worn by all classes, and at an earlier date, at any rate, was the term regularly used in some other countries where the French used “cowl.”—Matthew Paris in 1258 notes the arrival of eight ecclesiastics in England “in copes,” —“videlicet, quinque clausis, et quinque manicatis” (v. Ducange, Cappa). Rock (Church of Our Fathers, ed. Frere and Hart, London, 1905, ii, p. 41) quotes from Chaucer as to knowing a canon because “his cloke was sewed to his hood.”—It is very possible that we have in the Riwle itself proof that the author used “cowl” and “cope” interchangeably, as we have seen was sometimes done (most of these terms of costume seem to be sometimes interchanged, as examination of Ducange will show). At p. 420, 1. 6 the English text reads: “ muwen beon wimpel-leas, bi warme keppen and þeruppon blake ueiles.” “Keppen” in this passage has been taken to refer to head-coverings by Mr. Macaulay (p. 68), though Morton translates “capes.” I believe the latter may be preferable. We really have the same word as in “copes,” and an examination of the French text seems to show that we here may have it used in the same sense: “Si vous poez estre sanz wympel, seez od chaudes kuueles qe len appele kappes & par desus eel les noires veilz” (f. 68v.). Now “kuueles” is the word which we have used in the English text at p. 10, already quoted (supra, pp. 521 f.), where it is translated “cowl.” Since the “cowl” had a hood, a black veil could be worn over that, in lieu of a wimple.—Robert of Arbrissel also decrees for his nuns “ut guimpae albae earum nunquam apparent; velis eas operientibus” (Migne, clxii, c. 1079). The following from the Chaucerian Romance of the Rose has been quoted in this connection :

—The French text corresponding to the English at p. 11 is hardly legible: nothing can be recovered as to the “wide hood,” or the colors of the “cowl.” However, the latter word is partly visible, in the same form here found in the English and at f. 68v in the French (… ouele, f. 3v). The French abridges the reference to costume at p. 10 and omits the “kirtle or the cowl,” as follows: “… & le quel blank ou noir sicome nounsauanz vous demandent, qe quident qe ordre siete (?) en la cote.”—I regret that I have not the French text at p. 56.—The French also uses “cotes” for the lay-sisters' garb at p. 424: “Lour cates soient par desus closes pardeuant la poitrine sanz fermail” (f. 69). N here uses “hesmel,” but B and C “cop” (Macaulay, p. 331). It would appear that the “ilokene cope” at p. 56 might not differ from the “cote close” of the lay-sister at p. 424 (as given in the French) : thus, as directed (ibid.), her costume showed her dedication. “Cote” in the French often translates “kirtle” (as p. 362). Ducange gives instances showing “cotta” in monastic use, and one from 1298: “In decenti habitu, scilicet, in cappa clausa, vel cotta.”—The interpretation of such terms in the present treatise is specially difficult because we have two versions, dating from two widely separated periods.

⁷⁶ G. G. Coulton, Mediaeval Studies, 1st Series, 2nd ed., London. 1915, p. 40.

⁷⁷ Henry of Blois (nephew of the king and the dominating figure in the kingdom after the accession of his brother Stephen) was a monk of Cluny and one of its greatest benefactors. He became abbot of Glastonbury in 1126, Gilbert Foliot, Prior of Cluny, became abbot of Gloucester in 1139, the 12th abbot of Ramsey in 1176 became the 14th of Cluny, etc.

⁷⁸ There were three degrees of dependence on Cluny (see Pignot, ii, p. 313 f.). Hugh, the first Abbot of Reading, was called there from the Cluniac house of Lewes. He collaborated with Osbert of Clare in establishing the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (on which Peter was skeptical, see Demimuid, p. 207), and, as Archbishop of Rouen, was at the death bed of Henry I. He was a relative of Peter's intimate friend, Cardinal Matthew (the reforming prior of Cluny), who as Papal legate in France came into constant conflict with the Cistercians (see Revue Bénédictine, xviii, 1901, p. 129).

⁷⁹ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that he was received everywhere with great honor (ed. Thorpe, Rolls Series, 1861, i, p. 380). See also Reyner, App., pp. 140 ff. Peter mentions in his letters two visits to England, the last of which was certainly after 1141, when he went to Spain (cc. 661, 671). He writes an undated letter to Henry of Blois in which he says he spent much time in England the previous year, almost constantly in Henry's company (c. 204). The position of this letter in the series would seem to refer it to the earlier visit. The Histoire littéraire says that Peter's second visit took place c. 1145 (xii, p. 355). It should be noted that the great basilica of Cluny, so important for the history of architecture, was dedicated in 1131, and for this Henry I had been the principal benefactor. Peter writes to the Empress Matilda that her father had been a better friend to Cluny than any king for three hundred years (see Duckett, Record Evidences among Archives of the Ancient Abbey of Cluny, privately printed, 1886, p. 42).

⁸⁰ Migne, cl., c. 443.

⁸¹ See p. ix, n.

⁸² He once writes to Henry of Blois (c. 319) a begging letter for Marcigny, where the mothers of both had been nuns. Again he complains to Henry that the English visit Marcigny, and pass by Cluny (c. 231). He writes to one Robert who is apparently at Reading, and about to take the vows at Cluny, bringing with him a sister to enter Marcigny (c. 262). Marcigny had a dependent nunnery in the diocese of Salisbury (Pignot, ii, p. 41), but not even, its name is known.—For Peter's love for Marcigny see cc. 208 f., 350, 457, 889.

⁸³ The controversy was alive after the death both of Bernard and of Peter, as is shown by the Dialogus inter Cluniacensem Monachum et Cisterciensem, written from the Cistercian point of view between 1154 and 1174 (see Martène et Durand, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, Paris, 1717, v, cc. 1569 ff.). This work is an elaborate discussion of each point in question between the two orders, and probably other details of the Riwle besides those mentioned are framed with reference to these arguments. For example, the Cistercians made a great point of saying matins at day-break (c. 1604), and then not going again to bed. Bernard taunts Robert with the “sweet morning sleep” at Cluny. The anchoresses may say matins “by night in winter” (p. 20). The Dialogus discusses the question of monasteries assuming control over religious women (on which the orders differ, cc. 1633 f.).

⁸⁴ See Romania, xl, p. 745.

⁸⁵ It is impossible to read the letter of (St. Aelred without recognizing that some relation must exist to the Riwle. It has always been supposed that the latter was the borrower, because of the late date which it was given, and because of one citation “as Saint Aelred wrote to his sister” (Morton, p. 368, French, f. 59v). But any citation may be added by the scribe. We know that T and the Latin copy give extra texts (Morton, p. 184 f., Macaulay, p. 75), but Mr. Macaulay does not collate citations. In any case what is quoted is only the general sense of a section of the letter (c. 1460), and the mention of Aelred's name is therefore all the more likely to be simply the vague remembrance of a scribe. Aelred says (c. 1451) that he has no experience of the recluse's life, and writes from the works of “doctors.”—Some of the similarities found in the two works may be simply echoes of contemporary discussions. For example, the injunction against “gathering” is surely such (v. supra, p. 482 n.) ; and that against keeping a school, found in both treatises, may be a reminiscence of episcopal decrees; for it is quoted from “the Council of Rouen” in the same manuscript in which occurs Abelard's Rule for the Paraclete (Migne, op. cit., c. 322). I regret that I cannot trace its origin. The same excerpt forbids the reception of treasures for safe-keeping (also found in the Riwle). Both regulations are directed to “black nuns,” and the editor believes that they represent a compilation made by Heloise. Several councils of Rouen are listed from this period, but their decisions do not seem to be on record in the books accessible to me.—The fact that the gossip spread at anchorages, mentioned by both treatises, appears in a proverb quoted by the Riwle (p. 88) seems to show that this subject is not original with either writer. Probably St. Aelred's letter was not an early work, for his sister was old (v. cc. 1454–1457).—It is probable that the injunction against gay needle-work, found in the Riwle, originated in conditions which the author had observed. We know at least that Christina of Markyate did 'fine needlework “to gain friends by,” as the anchoresses are told not to do (p. 420) : for she helped the abbot of St. Alban's by sending some of her work to Pope Adrian IV (therefore after 1154).—B adds that needlework may be done for pay, if the master permit, and need require, and C, in adding the same by later correction, adds that this should be arranged secretly (Macaulay, p. 331).

⁸⁶ Migne, cxcv. He refers to being Master of the Novices (c. 562), and he left this position to lead out the house of Revesby in 1142–3. The work was instigated by the Abbot of Louth Park, which was not settled till 1140 (Cooke, pp. 662, 660).

⁸⁷ Opera, ed. J. A. Giles, London, 1848, iv, p. 182.

⁸⁸ Opera, ii, app., p. xcii (in an answer to a detractor, who is a canon who has left his convent to live as an anchorite, p. lxxxix).

⁸⁹ See his refusal sent to the Bishop of London, Ep. 123 (i, p. 371). He makes much here of the fact that the Carthusians do not celebrate mass frequently (p. 373).—It is possible that the suggestion made to the anchoresses (p. 286) to “vren lesse uorte reden more” (noted by Mr. Macaulay, p. 73, as unusual) shows the Carthusian influence elsewhere apparent in the Riwle. The Carthusians were famous for their love of books, and Guigo in his Customs says that almost all are scribes (c. 694).—“Aux yeux du Clunisien, le moine était avant tout l'homme de la prière, presque uniquement l'homme de la prière liturgique” (Rev. Bénédict., loc. cit., p. 285). The Cistercians reacted in favor of manual labor against the numerous masses of Cluny, but they of course made little of learning, and seem to have set prayer above reading. The Riwle may, by “vren,” mean saying extra hours (left to the choice of the anchoresses, p. 44). Peter was influenced by the Cistercians in reviving manual labor for the monks of Cluny, but for the anchorite Gilbert (cc. 97–98) he seems, by his praise of the copying of books, to show the Carthusian influence.—Another reference in the Riwle is certainly a contemporary echo. The anchoresses are told to keep silence at meals: “vor religiuse hit, ase wel owen biuoren alle” (p. 68). Guigo (c. 738) says that Carthusians should be taught by the Cistercian example to keep silence at meals. Peter the Venerable in his Statutes (c. 1032) says that the monks of Cluny ought to keep silence at meals “because all others do so.” This is an instance which shows the truth—in spite of reaction against their influence in some regards—of the saying of William of Malmesbury that the Cistercians were in his time “a model for all monks, a mirror for the diligent, a spur to the indolent.”

⁹⁰ The former opens the chapter already quoted from by the sentence, “Hypocritarum autem nomen et notam cautissime et fidelissime declinant Carthusienses” (p. 180).—His admiration for their lack of avarice leads him to dilate on those who “beg in order to get rich” (p. 185), and again shows the stock character of the injunctions on this point given to the anchoresses.—For Peter of Blois's admiration for the Carthusians, see op. cit., i, pp. 259 ff., 304 ff. (Eps. 86 and 97), iii, p. 47 (his dissatisfaction with most monks of his time appears ibid., pp. 25, 31, etc., 57).—Peter the Venerable's predilection for the Carthusians above all other orders is many times expressed in his letters (v. cc. 371, 412, 429, 478), and he visited them generally every year (c. 28). He also visited the group of hermits in subjection to Cluny (cc. 360 ff.), of whom Gilbert (to whom he wrote the epistle on the Solitary Life) apparently made one, and it must be remembered that Marcigny, the house of women in which he took such an intense interest (where he also often stayed) included anchoresses. It is evident that the knowledge of the Carthusians was spread all over Europe long before the establishment of the first English house in 1174, and Guigo's Customs would doubtless also be known (by the instrumentality of Peter the Venerable, if no other way).

⁹¹ See the Tablet, 1907, Oct. 19, 26, Nov. 2.

⁹² See Father Bridgett's History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain, new edition by Father Thurston, London, 1908, p 182; Henry of Huntingdon, Opera, Rolls Series, 1879, p. 271.

⁹³ See Rock, iii, pp. 258 n. ff., and Bridgett (Our Lady's Dowry, p. 176 f.), who combats Rock on its late introduction. H. Leclercq (Histoire des Conciles, Paris, 1913, v, 2nd part, App. iv) gives a very complete article on the Ave Maria, treating its use by the Dominicans, etc. He notes one Aybert (d. 1140) who used it constantly. This man (in Hainault) was first a hermit, then a Benedictine monk, then a recluse visited from near and far (see Acta Sanctorum, April, i, pp. 627 ff.).—The use of the Ave Maria in the present case would certainly cause no difficulty, for Aves make part of the devotion of the “Five Psalms of the Virgin,” pp. 38 ff., first pointed out in the treatise by Father MacNabb (p. 3), and this devotion can be carried back to the middle of the twelfth century with the Aves as it is found in the Ancren Riwle (the form used by Jordan of Saxony, noted by Father MacNabb, does not contain the Aves; see Monumenta Ord. Fratr. Praedic. Hist., Louvain, 1896, i, p. 118). In one case we are told that the monk, on whose death (in 1163) a miracle followed connected with this devotion, was taught the custom of saying the psalms by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, when he once stopped at St. Bertin's Abbey, St. Omer, on his way home from Rome.—Theobald went to Rome for his pallium in Jan. 1139, and this journey may be in question (see Ward, Catalogue of the Romances in the British Museum, London, 1893, ii, p. 633).—He said he had heard in Italy that the custom was practised in Jerusalem. In this case it may have been brought home by any traveller. It should be noted that the daughter-in-law of “good Queen Maud” (later Abbess of Fontevraud) was the daughter of the King of Jerusalem, and that Marcigny had a daughter-house there (Cucherat, Cluny au XI^e siècle, Autun, 1873, p. 92 n.). The church of the Holy City had its own liturgy, which was at some points very advanced in development (see J. Wickham Legg, Essays Liturgical and Historical, “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,” London, 1917, pp. 157 ff.). Jerusalem and crusading customs were doubtless of great interest at the time of the foundation of Kilburn.—A child is not taught the Ave in the time of the Riwle (see p. 210.—Cp. Rock, loc. cit.).

⁹⁴ Several writers note how unsafe it is, in the case of devotional practises, to date the original use of a custom at the time it first appears in the documents. In this connection should be quoted the letter of Dr. Frere already mentioned: “The general character of the services seems to me to point rather to the 13th century than to the 12th, but this is not really cogent, because one knows very much less of the services of the 12th century than those either of the 11th or 13th.” I wish to thank Dr. Frere both for his kind letter, and for permission to use it here. He wishes me to make clear that he gives “only hasty impressions.” He makes no conclusion.

⁹⁵ That in the Romanic Review, already mentioned, in which I group together the mystical works found in England in all three languages, and connect them with the historical evidence available which would seem to give hints as to their origin.

⁹⁶ It should be noted that Kilburn by the foundation charter was to pray for the abbey of Fécamp, and it had been the Abbot of Fécamp of an earlier time who had circulated' Anselm's meditations (see my earlier article, p. 184 n.). A female recluse of Fécamp signs the mortuary roll (1122) of Vital of Savigny (Rouleaux des Morts, ed. L. Delisle, Société de l'Histoire de la France, 1866, p. 296, 281 ff.). Fécamp was to the dukes of Normandy much what Westminster was to the kings of England. Edward the Confessor spent his exile here, and a close relation with England was kept up because this was the port of embarkation for England. Abbot John of Fécamp translated his interest in mysticism into practice, for he helped establish two monks as anchorites (L. Fallue, Histoire de Fécamp, Rouen, 1841, pp. 105, 129, et passim).

⁹⁷ This, we must remember, was the home of the scribe of T, which, as we should also remember, contained others of the mystical pieces (see Mühe, Ueber den im MS. Cotton Titus D XVIII erhaltenen Text der Ancren Riwle, Göttingen, 1901). The Riwle in T is adapted for both sexes (Mühe, pp. 48, 50).

⁹⁸ Some sentences are identical in both works (v. Vollhardt)—which presents difficulties for the theory of a French original for the Riwle.

⁹⁹ E. E. T. S., No. 80, p. xvi.

¹⁰⁰ It is placed between 1135 and 1147 (see edition in the Rolls Series, 1888, ii, introd., i, p. xviii).

¹⁰¹ Mr. Macaulay implies (p. 473) that the “anchorite sisters” of Ghent for whom he made this version could not belong to the house of Tarente, which was Cistercian. But the fact that anchorites lived under the protection of religious houses must be taken into account, and it may be that the term “apud Tarente” refers to residence near the Abbey in some such capacity.—It is interesting that Bec, in the abbacy of Anselm (who was their special friend), took under its protection three women who lived as recluses outside the cloister 1079–99. Two of these were great ladies retired from the world, of whom one was the mother of Abbot Crispin of Westminster (see le Chanoine Porée, Histoire de l'abbaye du Bec, Evreux, 1901, i, pp. 182–3). One may wonder whether the corrody of Gilbert may not have been given to the ladies of Kilburn in memory of the earlier trio, of whom his mother had been one. It will be recalled that Abbot Herebert has been thought to have come from Bec with Crispin.—There were regular Dominican recluses (see Clay, p. 78).

¹⁰² The part relating to the lay-brothers is lacking in the Westminster Customary as we have it, and the hours given in the related Customary of Canterbury (p. 281) are not those of the Riwle.—The author of the Riwle says (p. 6) that the unlearned must say their hours “in other wise.”

¹⁰³ On the identity of these terms see the Oxford Dictionary.—To match Father MacNabb's reference to the special devotion to Mary Magdalen evident in this passage, see St. Anselm's veneration of this saint, noted in my former article (p. 188 n.). The connection which Father MacNabb seeks to make between the use of the term “the order of St. James” and the title “Jacobitae” given to the Dominicans, is surely unnecessary, since the author has given his own explanation of the phrase. If a cult of St. James is needed with which Kilburn can be connected, it can be found at Reading Abbey, where one of wide patronage developed on Henry I's presenting the house with a relic of St. James the Great in 1125, or thereabouts. See the history of the Abbey by J. B. Hurry, London, 1901, pp. 95, 130, 163. It was St. James the Great whose name is given to the Dominicans (v. Ducange), but the epistle which gives the title to the anchoresses belongs to St. James the Less.

¹⁰⁴ See Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, Bolls Series, 1866, ii, pp. 397, 405, Dugdale, v. pp. 619 ff. The place came to be known—even in charter—as “Locus Reginae super Tarent.”

¹⁰⁵ See W. Wallace, Life of St. Edmund of Canterbury, London, 1893, p. 352. The interest in the religious education of women in the thirteenth century was surely not so remarkable as that in the twelfth. This will be discussed in a later paper.

¹⁰⁶ This passage may represent a real habit of thought of the house. The Virgin was considered to be the head of Marcigny, and her seat and portion were always provided (Pignot, ii, p. 35). It may be that the Carthusians sometimes took Christ for their head in the same fashion, for John of Salisbury mentions that they call no saint their founder, and adds: “Alii Basilium, alii Benedictum, hi Augustinum, at isti singularem magistrum habent, dominum Jesum Christum” (Opera, iv, p. 183).—The use of “distinctions” and of interpretations of Hebrew names, connected by Father MacNabb with Dominican influence (pp. 3, 6), means no more than a scholastic training in the author. This point will be discussed in a later paper.

¹⁰⁷ See J. W. Clark, op. cit., p. lxvi.

¹⁰⁸ Chronicle of Abingdon, Rolls Series, 1858, i, p. 49, ii, p. 464.

¹⁰⁹ Gilbert Crispin, p. 31. It is perhaps a sign of the English character of the convent that the Westminster Customary uses the old English habit of holding a cup (p. 127).

¹¹⁰ See Clark, pp. 82, 98. The part which would treat this subject is missing from the Westminster Customary. The division into alternate choirs seems to have been a general monastic custom (Martène, De Antiquis Monachorum Ritibus, Lyons, 1690, pp. 26 ff.).

¹¹¹ Peter the Venerable makes some alleviation in this regard in his reformed statutes of Cluny (c. 1043), and the Rule of the Temple criticizes the immoderate standing that had been practised (p. 26). These relaxations perhaps represent a reaction from the ideal of the eleventh century, which may be seen in Peter Damian. He views with the greatest horror the sitting during divine service which he had witnessed in France (op. cit., cc. 641 ff.).

¹¹² They are mentioned in a chronicle written in the late twelfth century, printed in Dugdale, vi, pp. 128 ff.

¹¹³ Lacie wore “ferri pondus non modicum; nam loricam …. sibi strictissime circumdedit” (p. 129). Peter Damian is always describing the feats of one “Dominicus Loricatus.” We can be certain that this man's lorica was fastened much like that described in the Riwle: “Duobus autem ferreis circulis in corpore cingitur, duobus item per brachiorum armos arctatur” (c. 747). The austerities described by Peter make us understand the reaction manifested by the author of the Riwle against such forms of holiness.—As an example of the familiar relations kept up with the court by Lacie and Ernisius, we are told that “good Queen Maud” once by a trick slipped a purse between. Lacie's lorica and haircloth, when she could not get him to take it any other way. The first church at Lanthony had been dedicated in 1108, and Lacie had led a hermit's life many years before.

¹¹⁴ Father MacNabb implies (p. 6) that the woman whose austerities are referred to may be Rich's mother, but it is a part of his theory to see Dominican influence in the Riwle (which puts it after 1221), the reference is made in the present, and Mabel Rich died about 1203 (Wallace, p. 69).