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 of willing purity and faithfulness need not now be
discussed. In certain countries, however, where the monastic system with
all the privileges it conferred on women was swept away, we now find a
strong public opinion against the restriction of women’s activity to the
domestic circle, and these countries were among the first to break down
the artificial barriers imposed on woman’s influence and grant her some
share in the intellectual and political life of the community.
The right to self-development and social responsibility which the woman of
to-day so persistently asks for, is in many ways analogous to the right
which the convent secured to womankind a thousand years ago. The woman of
to-day, who realises that the home circle as at present constituted
affords insufficient scope for her energies, had a precursor in the nun
who sought a field of activity in the convent. For the nun also hesitated,
it may be from motives which fail to appeal to us, to undertake the
customary duties and accept the ordinary joys of life. This hesitation may
be attributed to perversion of instinct, it can hardly in the case of the
nun be attributed to weakness of character, for she chose a path in life
which was neither smooth nor easy, and in this path she accomplished great
things, many of which have still living value.
It is with a view to the better appreciation of the influence and activity
of women connected with the Christian religion that the following chapters
have been written. They contain an enquiry into the cult of women-saints,
and some account of the general position of woman under monasticism. These
subjects however are so wide and the material at the disposal of the
student is so abundant that the analysis is confined to English and German
women.
At the outset an enquiry into the position of women among the Germans of
pre-Christian times appeared necessary, for early hagiology and the lives
of women who embraced the religious profession after Christianity was
first introduced, recall in various particulars the influence of woman and
her association with the supernatural during heathen times. The legends of
many saints contain a large element of heathen folk-tradition, together in
some cases with a small, scarcely perceptible element of historical fact.
In order therefore to establish the true importance of the Christian
women, whose labour benefited their contemporaries, and who in recognition
of their services were raised to saintship, the nature of early
women-saints in general had to be carefully considered.
In the chapters that follow, the spread of monasticism is dealt with in so
far as it was due to the influence of women, and some of the more
representative phases of convent life are described. Our enquiry dealing
with monasticism only as affecting women, the larger side of a great
subject has necessarily been ignored. There is a growing consciousness
now-a-days of the debt of gratitude which mankind as a whole owes to the
monastic and religious orders, but the history of these orders remains for
the most part unwritten. At some periods of monasticism the life of men
and that of women flow evenly side by side and can be dealt with
separately, at others their work so unites and intermingles that it seems
impossible to discuss the one apart from the other. Regarding some
developments the share taken by women, important enough in itself, seemed
to me hardly capable of being rated at its just value unless taken in
conjunction with that of men. These developments are therefore touched
upon briefly or passed over altogether, especially those in which the
devotional needs of the women are interesting chiefly in the effect which
they had in stimulating the literary productiveness of men. Other phases
are passed over because they were the outcome of a course of development,
the analysis of which lies beyond the scope of this work. This applies
generally to various continental movements which are throughout treated
briefly, and especially to convent life in the Netherlands, and to the
later history of mysticism. The history of the beguines in the North of
France and the Netherlands is full of interesting particulars, marked by
the inclusion in the _Acta Sanctorum_ of women like Marie of Oignies († c.
1213), Lutgardis of Tongern († 1246) and Christine of Truyen († 1224),
whose fame rests on states of spiritual ecstasy, favoured and encouraged
by the Dominican friars. So again the women in Southern Germany, who
cultivated like religious moods and expressed their feelings in writing,
were largely influenced by the Dominicans, apart from whom it seemed
impossible to treat them. In England the analysis of writings such as the
‘Revelations’ of Juliana of Norwich and of Margery Kempe necessitates a
full enquiry into the influence and popularity of Richard Rolle († 1349)
and Walter Hylton († 1395).
During the later Middle Ages the study of the influences at work in the
convent is further complicated by the development of religious
associations outside it. Pre-eminent among these stands the school of
Deventer which gave the impulse to the production of a devotional
literature, the purity and refinement of which has given it world-wide
reputation. These associations were founded by men not by women, and
though the desire to influence nuns largely moulded the men who wrote for
and preached to them, still the share taken by women in such movements is
entirely subordinate.
It is needless to multiply instances of the chapters on convent life which
are here omitted; in those which I place before the reader it has been my
aim not so much to give a consecutive history of monasticism as it
affected women, as to show how numerous are the directions in which this
history can be pursued. Having regard to the nature of the subject I have
addressed myself in the first place to the student, who in the references
given will, I trust, find corroboration of my views. In quoting from early
writings I have referred to the accounts printed in the _Acta Sanctorum
Bollandorum_ and to the edition of Latin writings published under the
auspices of Migne in the ‘Patrologiae Cursus Completus,’ except in those
few cases where a more recent edition of the work referred to offered
special advantages, and regarding the date of these writings I have been
chiefly guided by A. Potthast, _Wegweiser durch die Geschichtswerke des
europäischen Mittelalters_, 1862. In accordance with a division which has
been adopted by some histories of art and seems to me to have much in its
favour, I have taken Early Christian times to extend to the close of the
10th century; I have spoken of the period between 1000 and 1250 as the
Earlier, and of that between 1250 and 1500 as the Later Middle Ages. The
spelling of proper names in a work which extends over many centuries has
difficulties of its own. While observing a certain uniformity during each
period, I have as far as possible adhered to the contemporary local form
of each name.
While addressing myself largely to the student, I have kept along lines
which I trust may make the subject attractive to the general reader, in
whose interest I have translated all the passages quoted. There is a
growing consciousness now-a-days that for stability in social progress we
need among other things a wider scope for women’s activity. This scope as
I hope to show was to some extent formerly secured to women by the
monastic system. Perhaps some of those who are interested in the
educational movements of to-day may care to recall the history and
arrangements of institutions, which favoured the intellectual development
of women in the past.
I cannot conclude these prefatory remarks without a word of thanks to
those who have aided me by criticism and revision. Besides the two friends
to whom I have dedicated this book, I have to cordially thank Mrs R. W.
Cracroft for the labour she has spent on the literary revision of my work
in manuscript. To Dr H. F. Heath of Bedford College I am indebted for many
suggestions on points of philology, and to Robert J. Parker, Esq. of
Lincoln’s Inn for advice on some points of law and of general arrangement.
Conscious as I am of the many defects in my work, I cannot but be grateful
to the Syndics of the University Press, for the assistance they have
rendered me in its publication, and I trust that these defects may not
deter readers from following me into somewhat unfrequented paths, wherein
at any rate I have not stinted such powers of labour as are mine.
LINA ECKENSTEIN.
_December, 1895._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
§ 1. The Borderland of Heathendom and Christianity 1
§ 2. The Tribal Goddess as a Christian Saint 15
§ 3. Further Peculiarities of this Type of Saint 28
CHAPTER II. CONVENTS AMONG THE FRANKS, A.D. 550-650.
§ 1. At the Frankish Invasion 45
§ 2. St Radegund and the Nunnery at Poitiers 51
§ 3. The Revolt of the Nuns at Poitiers. Convent Life in the North 65
CHAPTER III. CONVENTS AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS, A.D. 630-730.
§ 1. Early Houses in Kent 79
§ 2. The Monastery at Whitby 88
§ 3. Ely and the influence of Bishop Wilfrith 95
§ 4. Houses in Mercia and in the South 106
CHAPTER IV. ANGLO-SAXON NUNS IN CONNECTION WITH BONIFACE.
§ 1. The Women corresponding with Boniface 118
§ 2. Anglo-Saxon Nuns abroad 134
CHAPTER V. CONVENTS IN SAXON LANDS BETWEEN A.D. 800-1000.
§ 1. Women’s Convents in Saxony 143
§ 2. Early History of Gandersheim 154
§ 3. The Nun Hrotsvith and her Writings 160
CHAPTER VI. THE MONASTIC REVIVAL OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
§ 1. The new Monastic Orders 184
§ 2. Benedictine Convents in the Twelfth Century 201
§ 3. The Order of St Gilbert of Sempringham 213
CHAPTER VII. ART INDUSTRIES IN THE NUNNERY.
§ 1. Art Industries generally 222
§ 2. Herrad and the ‘Garden of Delights’ 238
CHAPTER VIII. PROPHECY AND PHILANTHROPY.
§ 1. St Hildegard of Bingen and St Elisabeth of Schönau 256
§ 2. Women-Saints connected with Charity and Philanthropy 285
CHAPTER IX. EARLY MYSTIC LITERATURE.
§ 1. Mystic Writings for Women in England 305
§ 2. The Convent of Helfta and its Literary Nuns 328
CHAPTER X. SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONVENT IN ENGLAND DURING THE
LATER MIDDLE AGES.
§ 1. The external Relations of the Convent 354
§ 2. The internal Arrangements of the Convent 365
§ 3. The Foundation and internal Arrangements of Sion 383
CHAPTER XI. MONASTIC REFORM PREVIOUS TO THE REFORMATION.
§ 1. Visitations of Nunneries in England 398
§ 2. Reforms in Germany 414
CHAPTER XII. THE DISSOLUTION.
§ 1. The Dissolution of Nunneries in England 432
§ 2. The Memoir of Charitas Pirckheimer 458
CONCLUSION 477
APPENDIX. The Rhyme of Herrad 485
INDEX 488
ERRATA.
Page 23, note 1, date of St Ida in A. SS. Boll. should be _Sept. 4_
instead of _June 20_.
" 26, line 7, read _tilth_ instead of _silk_.
" 162, " 21, read _Martianus_ instead of _Marianus_.
" 190, " 32, read 1240 as the date of Jacobus di Vitriaco’s death.
" 241, " 8, read _Bergen_ instead of _Berg_.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
‘Die mit dem goldenen Schuh und dem Geiger ist auch eine
Muttergottes.’ _Bavarian Saying._
§ 1. The Borderland of Heathendom and Christianity.
In order to gain an insight into the causes of the rapid development of
monasticism among the German races, it is necessary to enquire into the
social arrangements of the period which witnessed the introduction of
Christianity, and into those survivals of the previous period of social
development which German Christianity absorbed. Among peoples of German
race monastic life generally, and especially monastic life which gave
scope for independent activity among women, had a development of its own.
Women of the newly-converted yet still barbarian race readily gathered
together and dwelt in religious settlements founded on their own
initiative and ruled independently of men. A reason for this must be
sought in the drift of contemporary life, which we shall thus have to
discuss at some length.
During the period of declining heathendom--for how long, measuring time by
centuries, it is not yet possible to say--the drift of society had been
towards curtailing woman’s liberty of movement and interfering with her
freedom of action. When the Germans crossed the threshold of history the
characteristics of the father-age were already in the ascendant; the
social era, when the growing desire for certainty of fatherhood caused
individual women and their offspring to be brought into the possession of
individual men, had already begun. The influence of women was more and
more restricted owing to their domestic subjection. But traditions of a
time when it had been otherwise still lingered.
Students of primitive history are recognising, for peoples of German race
among others, the existence of an early period of development, when women
played a greater part in both social and tribal life. Folk-lore,
philology, and surviving customs yield overwhelming evidence in support of
the few historic data which point to the period, conveniently called the
mother-age, when women held positions of authority inside the tribal group
and directly exercised influence on the doings of the tribe[1].
This period, the mother-age, is generally looked upon as an advance from
an earlier stage of savagery, and considered to be contemporaneous with
the beginnings of settled tribal life. It brought with it the practice of
tilth and agriculture, and led to the domestication of some of the smaller
animals and the invention of weaving and spinning, achievements with which
it is recognised that women must be credited.
In matters of polity and sex it established the paramount importance of
the woman; it is she who regulates the home, who notes the changes of the
seasons, who stores the results of experience, and treasures up the
intellectual wealth of the community in sayings which have come down to us
in the form of quaint maxims and old-world saws. As for family
arrangements, it was inside the tribal group and at the tribal festival
that sex unions were contracted; and this festival, traditions of which
survive in many parts of Europe to this day, and which was in its earliest
forms a period of unrestrained license for the women as well as the men,
was presided over by the tribal mothers, an arrangement which in various
particulars affords an explanation of many ideas associated with women in
later times.
The father-age succeeding to the mother-age in time altogether
revolutionised the relations of the sexes; transient sex unions, formerly
the rule, were gradually eliminated by capture and retention of wives from
outside the tribal group. The change marks a distinct step in social
advance. When men as heads of families succeeded to much of the influence
women had held in the tribe, barbarous tendencies, such as blood
sacrifice, were checked and a higher moral standard was attained. But this
was done at the cost of her prerogative to the woman; and her social
influence to some extent passed from her.
It must be granted that the character of the mother-age in some of its
bearings is hypothetical, but we can infer many of the social arrangements
of the period from surviving customs and usages, and its organisation
from the part woman played in tradition and saga, and, as we shall see
later, from folk-traditions preserved in the legends of the saints. And
further, unless we admit that the social arrangements of the earlier
period differed from those of the later, we are at a loss to account for
the veneration in which woman was held and for the influence exerted by
her as we confront her on the threshold of written history. When once we
grasp the essentials of these earlier arrangements, we hold the clue to
the existence of types of character and tendencies which otherwise appear
anomalous.
For at the time when contact with Christianity brought with it the
possibility of monastic settlements, the love of domestic life had not
penetrated so deeply, nor were its conditions so uniformly favourable, but
that many women were ready to break away from it. Reminiscences of an
independence belonging to them in the past, coupled with the desire for
leadership, made many women loth to conform to life inside the family as
wives and mothers under conditions formulated by men. Tendencies surviving
from the earlier period, and still unsubdued, made the advantages of
married life weigh light in the balance against a loss of liberty. To
conceive the force of these tendencies is to gain an insight into the
elements which the convent forthwith absorbs.
In the world outside the convent commanding figures of womankind become
fewer with outgoing heathendom, and the part played by women becomes of
less and less importance. There is less room left for the Gannas of
history or for the Kriemhilds of saga, for powerful natures such as the
Visigoth princess Brunihild, queen of the Franks, or Drahomir of
Brandenburg, queen in Bohemia, who gratify their passion for influence
with a recklessness which strikes terror into the breasts of their
contemporaries. As the old chronicler of St Denis remarks, women who are
bent on evil do worse evil than men. But in the convent the influence of
womankind lasted longer. Spirited nuns and independent-minded abbesses
turn to account the possibilities open to them in a way which commands
respect and repeatedly secures superstitious reverence in the outside
world. The influence and the powers exerted by these women, as we shall
see further on, are altogether remarkable, especially during early
Christian times. But we also come across frequent instances of lawlessness
among the women who band together in the convent,--a lawlessness to which
the arrangements of the earlier age likewise supply a clue. For that very
love of independence, which led to beneficial results where it was coupled
with self-control and consciousness of greater responsibility, tended in
the direction of vagrancy and dissoluteness when it was accompanied by
distaste for every kind of restraint.
In this connection we must say a few words on the varying status of loose
women, since the estimation in which these women were held and the
attitude assumed towards them affected monasticism in various particulars.
It is true that during early Christian times little heed was taken of them
and few objections were raised to their influence, but later distinct
efforts were made by various religious orders to prevent women from
drifting into a class which, whatever may have been its condition in past
times, was felt to be steadily and surely deteriorating.
The distinction of women into so-called respectable and disreputable
classes dates from before the introduction of Christianity. It arose as
the father-age gained on the mother-age, when appropriated women were more
and more absorbed into domesticity, while those women outside, who either
resented or escaped subjection, found their position surrounded by
increasing difficulties, and aspersion more and more cast on their
independence. By accepting the distinction, the teachers of Christianity
certainly helped to make it more definite; but for centuries the existence
of loose women, so far from being condemned, was hardly discountenanced by
them. The revenues which ecclesiastical courts and royal households
derived from taxes levied on these women as a class yield proof of
this[2]. Certainly efforts were made to set limits to their practices and
the disorderly tendencies which in the nature of things became connected
with them and with those with whom they habitually consorted. But this was
done not so much to restrain them as to protect women of the other class
from being confounded with them. Down to the time of the Reformation, the
idea that the existence of loose women as a class should be
discountenanced does not present itself, for they were a recognised
feature of court life and of town life everywhere. Marshalled into bands,
they accompanied the king and the army on their most distant expeditions,
and stepped to the fore wherever there was question of merrymaking or
entertainment. Indeed there is reason to believe, improbable though it may
seem at first sight, that women of loose life, as we come across them in
the Middle Ages, are successors to a class which had been powerful in the
past. They are not altogether depraved and despised characters such as
legislation founded on tenets of Roman Law chose to stamp them. For law
and custom are often at variance regarding the rights and privileges
belonging to them. These rights and privileges they retained in various
particulars till the time of the Reformation, which indeed marks a turning
point in the attitude taken by society towards women generally.
Different ages have different standards of purity and faithfulness. The
loose or unattached women of the past are of many kinds and many types; to
apply the term prostitute to them raises a false idea of their position as
compared with that of women in other walks of life. If we would deal with
them as a class at all, it is only this they have in common,--that they
are indifferent to the ties of family, and that the men who associate with
them are not by so doing held to incur any responsibility towards them or
towards their offspring.
If we bear in mind the part these women have played and the modifications
which their status has undergone, it will be seen that the subject is one
which nearly affects monasticism. For the convent accepted the dislike
women felt to domestic subjection and countenanced them in their refusal
to undertake the duties of married life. It offered an escape from the
tyranny of the family, but it did so on condition of such a sacrifice of
personal independence, as in the outside world more and more involved the
loss of good repute. On the face of it, a greater contrast than that
between the loose woman and the nun is hard to conceive; and yet they have
this in common, that they are both the outcome of the refusal among
womankind to accept married relations on the basis of the subjection
imposed by the father-age.
In other respects too the earlier heathen period was not without influence
on the incoming Christian faith, and helped to determine its conceptions
with regard to women. In actual life the sacerdotal privileges, which
tribal mothers had appropriated to themselves at the time of the
introduction of Christianity, were retained by the priestess; while in the
realm of the ideal the reverence in which tribal mothers had been held
still lived on in the worship of the tribal mother-divinity. It is under
this twofold aspect, as priestess and as tribal mother-goddess, that the
power of women was brought face to face with Christianity; the priestess
and the mother-goddess were the well-defined types of heathen womanhood
with which the early Church was called upon to deal.
We will show later on how the ideal conception prevailed, and how the
heathen mother-goddess often assumed the garb of a Christian woman-saint,
and as a Christian woman-saint was left to exist unmolested. Not so the
heathen priestess and prophetess. From the first introduction of
Christianity the holding of sacerdotal powers by women was resented both
within and without the Church, and opprobrium was cast on the women who
claimed to mediate between the human and the divine.
At the time of the advent of Christianity the Gannas and Veledas of the
Roman period are still a living reality; they are the ‘wise women’ who
every now and then leave their retreat and appear on the stage of history.
A prophetess in gorgeous apparel makes her entry into Verdun in the year
547, drawing crowds about her and foretelling the future. She is in no way
intimidated by the exorcisms of prelates, and presently leaves to betake
herself to the court of the Frankish queen Fredegund. Again in 577 we find
the Frankish king Guntchramm in consultation with a woman soothsayer, and
other cases of the kind are on record[3].
In the ninth century the Church more effectually exercised her influence
in the case of the woman Thiota, who coming from Switzerland inflamed the
minds of the folk in Mainz; for she was accused of profanity and publicly
scourged[4]. But for all the attacks of the Church, the folk persisted in
clinging to its priestesses and in believing them gifted with special
powers. Grimm shows how the Christian accusers of soothsaying women made
them into odious witches[5]; Wuttke and Weinhold, both well-known
students of folk-lore, consider that witches were originally heathen
priestesses[6]. The intrinsic meaning of the word _hexe_, the German
designation for witch, points to some one who originally belonged to a
group living in a particular manner, but whose practices made her
obnoxious to those who had apprehended the higher moral standard of a
later social period. But the Church failed to stamp even the witch as
wholly despicable; for in popular estimation she always retained some of
the attributes of the priestess, the wise woman, the _bona domina_, the
‘white witch’ of tradition; so that the doctrine that the soothsaying
woman is necessarily the associate of evil was never altogether accepted.
Even now-a-days incidents happen occasionally in remote districts which
show how the people still readily seek the help of women in matters of
wisdom, of leechcraft, and of prescience. It was only under the influence
of a scare that people, who were accustomed to consult the wise woman in
good faith, could be brought to abhor her as a witch. It was only during
the later Middle Ages that the undisputed and indisputable connection of
some ‘wise women’ with licentious customs gave their traducers a weapon of
which they were not slow to avail themselves, and which enabled them to
rouse fanaticism of the worst kind against these women.
The practices and popularity of witchcraft were in truth the latest
survivals of the mother-age. The woman, who devised love-charms and brewed
manifold remedies for impotence and for allaying the pangs of childbirth,
who pretended to control the weather and claimed the power to turn the
milk of a whole village blue, carried on traditions of a very primitive
period. And her powers, as we shall see, always had a close parallel in
those attributed to women-saints. For example St Gertrud of Nivelles has
left a highly prized relic to womankind in the form of a cloak which is
still hung about those who are desirous of becoming mothers[7]; and the
hair of a saint, Mechthild, is still hung outside the church at Töss in
Switzerland to avert the thunderstorm[8]; and again St Gunthild of
Biberbach and others are still appealed to that they may avert the cattle
plague[9]. What difference, it may be asked, is there between the powers
attributed to these saints and the powers with which witches are usually
credited? They are the obverse and reverse of woman’s connection with the
supernatural, which in the one case is interpreted by the sober mind of
reverence, and in the other is dreaded under the perturbing influence of a
fear encouraged, if not originated, by Christian fanatics.
In the Christian Church the profession of the nun was accepted as holy,
but an impassable gulf separated her from the priestess. During early
Christian times we come across the injunction that women shall not serve
at the altar[10], and that lady abbesses shall not take upon themselves
religious duties reserved to men by the Church. When we think of women
gathered together in a religious establishment and dependent on the
priest outside for the performing of divine worship, their desire to
manage things for themselves does not appear unnatural, encouraged as it
would be by traditions of sacerdotal rights belonging to them in the past.
And it is worthy of notice that as late as the 13th century, Brother
Berthold, an influential preacher of south Germany, speaks ardently
against women who would officiate at divine service and urges the mischief
that may result from such a course.
Turning to the question of how far these obvious survivals from a heathen
age are determined by time and place, we find broad lines of difference
between the heathen survivals of the various branches of the German race,
and considerable diversity in the character of their early Christianity
and their early women-saints. This diversity is attributable to the fact
that the heathen beliefs of these various peoples were not the same at the
time of their first contact with Christianity, and that they did not
accept it under like circumstances.
For while those branches of the race who moved in the vanguard of the
great migration, the Vandals, the Burgundians and the Goths, readily
embraced Christianity, it was Christianity in its Arian form. Arianism,
which elsewhere had been branded as heresy and well-nigh stamped out,
suddenly revived among the Germans; all the branches of the race who came
into direct contact with peoples of civilized Latinity readily embraced
it. Now one of the distinguishing features of Arian belief was its hatred
of monasticism[11]. The Arian convert hunted the monk from his seclusion
and thrust him back to the duties of civic life. It is not then among
Germans who adopted Arian Christianity that the beginnings of convent life
must be sought. Indeed as Germans these peoples soon passed away from the
theatre of history; they intermarried and fell in with the habits of the
people among whom they settled, and forfeited their German language and
their German traditions.
It was otherwise with the Franks who entered Gaul at the close of the
fourth century, and with the Anglo-Saxons who took possession of Britain.
The essentially warlike character of these peoples was marked by their
worship of deities such as Wodan, a worship before which the earlier
worship of mother-divinities was giving way. Women had already been
brought into subjection, but they had a latent desire for independence,
and among the Franks and Anglo-Saxons women of the newly converted race
eagerly snatched at the possibilities opened out by convent life, and in
their ranks history chronicles some of the earliest and most remarkable
developments of monasticism. But the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, in
leaving behind the land of their origin, had left behind those hallowed
sites on which primitive worship so essentially depends. It is in vain
that we seek among them for a direct connection between heathen
mother-divinity and Christian woman-saint; their mother-divinities did not
live on in connection with the Church. It is true that the inclination to
hold women in reverence remained, and found expression in the readiness
with which they revered women as saints. The women-saints of the
Anglo-Saxons and the Franks are numerous, and are nearly all known to have
been interested in convent foundations. But the legends, which in course
of time have crystallised round them, and the miracles attributed to them,
though containing certain elements of heathen folk-tradition, are
colourless and pale compared with the traditions which have been preserved
by saint legend abroad. It is in Germany proper, where the same race has
been in possession of the same sites for countless generations, that the
primitive character of heathen traditions is most pronounced and has most
directly determined and influenced the cult and the legends of
women-saints.
Besides the reminiscences of the early period which have survived in saint
legend, traditions and customs of the same period have lived on in the
worship of the Virgin Mary. The worship of the Virgin Mary was but
slightly developed in Romanised Gaul and Keltic Britain, but from the
beginning of the sixth century it is a marked feature in the popular creed
in those countries where the German element prevailed.
As Mrs Jameson says in her book on the legends of the Madonna: ‘It is
curious to observe, as the worship of the Virgin mother expanded and
gathered in itself the relics of many an ancient faith, how the new and
the old elements, some of them apparently most heterogeneous, became
amalgamated and were combined into the earlier forms of art...[12].’
Indeed the prominence given to the Virgin is out of all proportion to the
meagre mention of her in the gospels. During the early Christian period
she was largely worshipped as a patron saint in France, England and
Germany, and her fame continued steadily increasing with the centuries
till its climax was reached in the Middle Ages, which witnessed the
greatest concessions made by the Church to the demands of popular faith.
According to Rhys[13] many churches dedicated to Mary were built on spots
where tradition speaks of the discovery of a wooden image, probably a
heathen statue which was connected with her.
In the seventh century Pope Sergius (687-701) expressly ordered that the
festivals of the Virgin Mary were to take place on heathen holy days in
order that heathen celebrations might become associated with her[14]. The
festivals of the Virgin to this day are associated with pilgrimages, the
taste for which to the Frenchman of the Middle Ages appeared peculiarly
German. The chronicler Froissart, writing about 1390, remarks ‘for the
Germans are fond of performing pilgrimages and it is one of their
customs[15].’
Mary then, under her own name, or under the vaguer appellation of _Our
Lady_ (Unser liebe frau, Notre Dame, de heilige maagd), assimilated
surviving traditions of the heathen faith which were largely reminiscences
of the mother-age; so that Mary became the heiress of mother-divinities,
and her worship was associated with cave, and tree, and fountain, and
hill-top, all sites of the primitive cult.
‘Often,’ says Menzel[16], ‘a wonder-working picture of the Madonna is
found hung on a tree or inside a tree; hence numerous appellations like
“Our dear Lady of the Oak,” “Our dear Lady of the Linden-tree,” etc. Often
at the foot of the tree, upon which such a picture is hung, a fountain
flows to which miraculous power is ascribed.’
In the Tyrol we hear of pictures which have been discovered floating in a
fountain or which were borne to the bank by a river[17].
As proof of the Virgin Mary’s connection with festivals, we find her name
associated in Belgium with many pageants held on the first of May.
Throughout German lands the Assumption of the Virgin comes at the harvest
festival, and furnishes an occasion for some pilgrimage or fair which
preserves many peculiar and perplexing traits of an earlier civilization.
The harvest festival is coupled in some parts of Germany with customs
that are of extreme antiquity. In Bavaria the festival sometimes goes by
the name of the ‘day of sacred herbs,’ _kräuterweihtag_; near Würzburg it
is called the ‘day of sacred roots,’ _würzelweihtag_, or ‘day of
bunch-gathering,’ _büschelfrauentag_[18]. In the Tyrol the 15th of August
is the great day of the Virgin, _grosse frauentag_, when a collection of
herbs for medicinal purposes is made. A number of days, _frauentage_, come
in July and August and are now connected with the Virgin, on which herbs
are collected and offered as sacred bunches either on the altar of Our
Lady in church and chapel, or on hill-tops which throughout Germany are
the sites of ancient woman-worship[19]. This collecting and offering of
herbs points to a stage even more primitive than that represented by
offerings of grain at the harvest festival.
In a few instances the worship of Mary is directly coupled with that of
some heathen divinity. In Antwerp to this day an ancient idol of peculiar
appearance is preserved, which women, who are desirous of becoming
mothers, decorate with flowers at certain times of the year. Its heathen
appellation is lost, but above it now stands a figure of the Virgin[20].
Again we find the name of Mary joined to that of the heathen goddess Sif.
In the Eiffel district, extending between the rivers Rhine, Meuse and
Mosel, a church stands dedicated to Mariasif, the name of Mary being
coupled with that of Sif, a woman-divinity of the German heathen pantheon,
whom Grimm characterizes as a giver of rain[21]. The name Mariahilf, a
similar combination, is frequently found in south Germany, the name of
Mary as we hope to show further down being joined to that of a goddess who
has survived in the Christian saint Hilp[22].
These examples will suffice to show the close connection between the
conceptions of heathendom and popular Christianity, and how the cloak of
heathen association has fallen on the shoulders of the saints of the
Christian Church. The authorities at Rome saw no occasion to take
exception to its doing so. Pope Gregorius II. (590-604) in a letter
addressed to Melitus of Canterbury expressly urged that the days of
heathen festival should receive solemnity through dedication to some holy
martyr[23]. The Christian saint whose name was substituted for that of
some heathen divinity readily assimilated associations of the early
period. Scriptural characters and Christian teachers were given the
emblems of older divinities and assumed their characteristics. But the
varying nature of the same saint in different countries has hardly
received due attention. St Peter of the early British Church was very
different from St Peter who in Bavaria walked the earth like clumsy
good-natured Thor, or from St Peter who in Rome took the place of Mars as
protector of the city. Similarly the legends currently told of the same
saint in different countries exhibit markedly different traits.
For the transition from heathendom to Christianity was the work not of
years but of centuries; the claims made by religion changed, but the
underlying conceptions for a long time remained unaltered. Customs which
had once taken a divine sanction continued to be viewed under a religious
aspect, though they were often at variance with the newly-introduced
faith. The craving for local divinities in itself was heathen; in course
of time the cult of the saints altogether re-moulded the Christianity of
Christ. But the Church of Rome, far from opposing the multitude of those
through whom the folk sought intercession with the Godhead, opened her
arms wide to all.
At the outset it lay with the local dignitary to recognise or reject the
names which the folk held in veneration. Religious settlements and Church
centres regulated days and seasons according to the calendar of the chief
festivals of the year, as accepted by the Church at Rome; but the local
dignitary was at liberty to add further names to the list at his
discretion. For centuries there was no need of canonisation to elevate an
individual to the rank of saint; the inscribing of his name on a local
calendar was sufficient. Local calendars went on indefinitely swelling the
list of saintly names till the Papal See felt called upon to
interfere[24]. Since the year 1153 the right to declare a person a saint
has lain altogether with the authorities at Rome[25].
Considering the circumstances under which the peoples of German race
first came into contact with Christianity, it is well to recall the fact
that a busy Church life had grown up in many of the cities north of the
Alps, which were centres of the Roman system of administration previous to
the upheaval and migration of German heathen tribes, which began in the
fourth century. Legend has preserved stories of the apostles and their
disciples wandering northwards and founding early bishoprics along the
Rhine, in Gaul and in Britain[26]. The massacres of Christians in the
reign of Diocletian cannot be altogether fabulous; but after the year 313,
when Constantine at Rome officially accepted the new faith, until the
German invasion, the position of Christianity was well secured.
A certain development of monastic life had accompanied its spread. In
western Gaul we hear of Martin of Tours († 400) who, after years of
military service and religious persecution, settled near Poitiers and drew
about him many who joined him in a round of devotion and work. The
monastic, or rather cœnobite, settlement of his time consisted of a number
of wattled cells or huts, surrounded by a trench or a wall of earth. The
distinction between the earlier word, _coenobium_, and the later word,
_monasterium_, as used in western Europe, lies in this, that the
_coenobium_ designates the assembled worshippers alone, while the
monastery presupposes the possession of a definite site of land[27]. In
this sense the word monastery is as fitly applied to settlements ruled by
women as to those ruled by men, especially during the early period when
these settlements frequently include members of both sexes. St Martin of
Tours is also credited with having founded congregations of religious
women[28], but I have found nothing definite concerning them.
Our knowledge of the Christian life of the British is very limited;
presumably the religious settlement was a school both of theology and of
learning, and no line of distinction divided the settlements of priests
from those of monks. From Gildas, a British writer, who at the time of the
Anglo-Saxon invasion (c. 560) wrote a stern invective against the
irreligious ways of his countrymen, we gather that women lived under the
direction of priests, but it is not clear whether they were vowed to
continence[29]. But as far as I am aware, there is no evidence
forthcoming that before the Saxon invasion women lived in separate
religious establishments, the rule of which was in the hands of one of
their own sex[30].
The convent is of later date. During the early centuries of established
Christianity the woman who takes the vow of continence secures the
protection of the Church but does not necessarily leave her
home-surroundings.
Thus Ambrosius, archbishop of Milan († 397), one of the most influential
supporters of early Christianity, greatly inflamed women’s zeal for a
celibate life. But in the writings of Ambrosius, which treat of virginity,
there is no suggestion that the widow or the maiden who vows continence
shall seek seclusion or solitude[31]. Women vowed to continence moved
about freely, secure through their connection with the Church from
distasteful unions which their relatives might otherwise force upon them.
Their only distinctive mark was the use of a veil.
Similarly we find Hilarius († 369), bishop of Poitiers, addressing a
letter to his daughter Abra on the beauties of the unmarried state. In
this he assures her, that if she be strong enough to renounce an earthly
bridegroom, together with gay and splendid apparel, a priceless pearl
shall fall to her share[32]. But in this letter also there is no
suggestion that the woman who embraces religion should dwell apart from
her family. It is well to bear this in mind, for after the acceptance of
Christianity by the peoples of German race, we occasionally hear of women
who, though vowed to religion, move about freely among their fellows; but
Church councils and synods began to urge more and more emphatically that
this was productive of evil, and that a woman who had taken the religious
vow must be a member of a convent.
To sum up;--the peoples of German race, at the time of their contact with
Christianity, were in a state of social development which directly
affected the form in which they accepted the new faith and the
institutions to which such acceptance gave rise. Some branches of the
race, deserting the land of their birth, came into contact with peoples
of Latin origin, and embraced Christianity under a form which excluded
monasticism, and soon lost their identity as Germans. Others, as the
Franks and Anglo-Saxons, giving up the worship of their heathen gods,
accepted orthodox Christianity, and favoured the mode of life of those who
followed peaceful pursuits in the monastery, pursuits which their wives
especially were eager to embrace. Again, those peoples who remained in
possession of their earlier homes largely preserved usages dating from a
primitive period of tribal organization, usages which affected the
position of their women and determined the character of their
women-saints. It is to Germany proper that we must go for the
woman-priestess who lives on longest as the witch, and for the loose women
who most markedly retain special rights and privileges. And it is also in
Germany proper that we find the woman-saint who is direct successor to the
tribal mother-goddess.
§ 2. The Tribal Goddess as a Christian Saint.
Before considering the beginnings of convent life as the work of women
whose existence rests on a firm historic basis, we must enquire into the
nature of women-saints. From the earliest times of established
Christianity the lives of men and women who were credited with special
holiness have formed a favourite theme of religious narratives, which were
intended to keep their memory green and to impress the devout with
thoughts of their saintliness.
The Acts of the Saints, the comprehensive collection of which is now in
course of publication under the auspices of the Bollandists, form a most
important branch of literature. They include some of the most valuable
material for a history of the first ten centuries of our era, and give a
most instructive insight into the drift of Christianity in different
epochs. The aims, experiences and sufferings of Christian heroes and
heroines inspired the student and fired the imagination of the poet. Prose
narrative told of their lives, poems were written in their praise, and
hymns were composed to be sung at the celebration of their office. The
godly gained confidence from the perusal of such compositions, and the
people hearing them read or sung were impressed in favour of Christian
doctrine.
The number of men and women whom posterity has glorified as saints is
legion. Besides the characters of the accepted and the apocryphal gospels,
there are the numerous early converts to Christianity who suffered for
their faith, and all those who during early Christian times turned their
energies to practising and preaching the tenets of the new religion, and
to whose memory a loving recollection paid the tribute of superstitious
reverence. Their successors in the work of Christianity accepted them as
patron saints and added their names to the list of those to whose memory
special days were dedicated. Many of them are individuals whose activity
in the cause of Christianity is well authenticated. Friends have enlarged
on their work, contemporary history refers to their existence, and often
they have themselves left writings, which give an insight into their
lives. They are the early and true saints of history, on whose shoulders
in some cases the cloak of heathen association has fallen, but without
interfering with their great and lasting worth.
But besides those who were canonised for their enthusiasm in the cause of
early Christianity, the Acts of the Saints mention a number of men and
women who enjoy local reverence, but of whose actual existence during
Christian times evidence is wanting. Among them are a certain number of
women with whom the present chapter purposes to deal, women who are
locally worshipped as saints, and whose claims to holiness are generally
recognised, but whose existence during Christian times is hypothetical.
Their legends contain a small, in some cases a scarcely sensible, basis of
historic fact, and their cult preserves traits which are pre-Christian,
often anti-Christian, in character.
The traveller Blunt, during a stay in Italy in the beginning of this
century, was struck with the many points which modern saints and ancient
gods have in common. He gives a description of the festival of St Agatha
at Catania, of which he was an eye-witness, and which to this day, as I
have been told, continues little changed. The festival, as Blunt describes
it, opened with a horse-race, which he knew from Ovid was one of the
spectacles of the festival of the goddess Ceres; and further he witnessed
a mummery and the carrying about of huge torches, both of which he also
knew formed part of the old pagan festival. But more remarkable than this
was a great procession which began in the evening and lasted into the
night; hundreds of citizens crowded to draw through the town a ponderous
car, on which were placed the image of the saint and her relics, which the
priests exhibited to the ringing of bells. Among these relics were the
veil of Agatha, to which is ascribed the power of staying the eruption of
Mount Aetna, and the breasts of the saint, which were torn off during her
martyrdom[33]. Catania, Blunt knew, had always been famous for the worship
of Ceres, and the ringing of bells and a veil were marked features of her
festivals, the greater and the lesser Eleusinia. Menzel tells us that huge
breasts were carried about on the occasion[34]. Further, Blunt heard that
two festivals took place yearly in Catania in honour of Agatha; one early
in the spring, the other in the autumn, exactly corresponding to the time
when the greater and lesser Eleusinia were celebrated. Even the name
Agatha seemed but a taking over into the new religion of a name sacred to
the old. Ceres was popularly addressed as _Bona Dea_, and the name Agatha,
which does not occur as a proper name during ancient times, seemed but a
translation of the Latin epithet into Greek.
The legend of Agatha as contained in the _Acta Sanctorum_ places her
existence in the third century and gives full details concerning her
parentage, her trials and her martyrdom; but I have not been able to
ascertain when it was written. Agatha is the chief saint of the district
all about Catania, and we are told that her fame penetrated at an early
date into Italy and Greece[35].
It is of course impossible actually to disprove the existence of a
Christian maiden Agatha in Catania in the third century. Some may incline
to the view that such a maiden did exist, and that a strange likeness
between her experiences and name on the one hand, and the cult of and
epithet applied to Ceres on the other, led to the popular worship of her
instead of the ancient goddess. The question of her existence as a
Christian maiden during Christian times can only be answered by a balance
of probabilities. Our opinion of the truth or falsehood of the traditions
concerning her rests on inference, and the conclusion at which we arrive
upon the evidence must largely depend on the attitude of mind in which we
approach the subject.
The late Professor Robertson Smith has insisted that myths are latter-day
inventions which profess to explain surviving peculiarities of ritual. If
this be so, we hold in the Eleusinia a clue to the incidents of the Agatha
legend. The story for example of her veil, which remained untouched by the
flames when she was burnt, may be a popular myth which tries to account
for the presence of the veil at the festival. The incident of the breasts
torn off during martyrdom was invented to account for the presence of
these strange symbols.
Instances of this kind could be indefinitely multiplied. Let the reader,
who wishes to pursue the subject on classic soil, examine the name, the
legend and the emblem of St Agnes, virgin martyr of Rome, who is reputed
to have lived in the third century and whose cult is well established in
the fourth; let him enquire into the name, legend and associations of St
Rosalia of Palermo, invoked as a protectress from the plague, of whom no
mention occurs till four centuries after her reputed existence[36].
I have chosen Agatha as a starting point for the present enquiry, because
there is much evidence to hand of the prevalence of mother-deities in
pre-Christian Sicily, and because the examination of German saint-legend
and saint-worship leads to analogous results. In Germany too the mother
divinity of heathendom seems to survive in the virgin saint; and in
Germany virgin saints, in attributes, cult and name, exhibit peculiarities
which it seems impossible to explain save on the hypothesis that
traditions of the heathen past survive in them. So much is associated with
them which is pre-Christian, even anti-Christian in character, that it
seems legitimate to speak of them as pseudo-saints.
I own it is not always possible to distinguish between the historical
saint and the pseudo-saint. Sometimes data are wanting to disprove the
statements made by the legend-writer about time and place; sometimes
information is not forthcoming about local traditions and customs, which
might make a suggestive trait in saint-legend stand out in its full
meaning. In some cases also, owing to a coincidence of name, fictitious
associations have become attached to a real personage. But these cases I
believe are comparatively few. As a general rule it holds good that a
historical saint will be readily associated with miraculous powers, but
not with profane and anti-Christian usages. Where the latter occur it is
probable that no evidence will be forthcoming of the saint’s actual
existence during Christian times. If she represents a person who ever
existed at all, such a person must have lived in a far-distant heathen
past, at a time which had nothing in common with Christian teaching and
with Christian tenets.
There is this further peculiarity about the woman pseudo-saint of Germany,
that she is especially the saint of the peasantry; so that we rarely hear
more of her than perhaps her name till centuries after her reputed
existence. Early writers of history and biography have failed to chronicle
her doings. Indeed we do not hear of her at all till we hear of her cult
as one of long standing or of great importance.
It is only when the worship of such saints, who in the eyes of the common
folk are the chief glory of their respective districts, attracts the
attention of the Church, that the legend-writer sets to work to write
their legends. He begins by ascribing to the holder of a venerated name
human parentage and human experiences, he collects and he blends the local
traditions associated with the saint on a would-be historical background,
and makes a story which frequently offers a curious mixture of the
Christian and the profane. Usually he places the saint’s existence in the
earliest period of Christianity; sometimes at a time when Christianity was
unknown in the neighbourhood where she is the object of reverence.
Moreover all these saints are patronesses of women in their times of
special trial. Their cult generally centres round a cave, a fountain of
peculiar power, a tree, or some other site of primitive woman-worship.
Frequently they are connected with some peculiar local custom which
supplies the clue to incidents introduced by the legend-writer. And even
when the clue is wanting, it is sometimes possible to understand one
legend by reading it in the light of another. Obscure as the parallels are
in some cases, in others they are strikingly clear.
The recognised holiness of the woman pseudo-saint is in no way determined
by the limit of bishopric and diocese; she is worshipped within
geographical limits, but within limits which have not been marked out by
the Church. It was mentioned above that separate districts of Germany, or
rather tribes occupying such districts, clung to a belief in protective
mother-goddesses (Gaumütter). Possibly, where the name of a pseudo-saint
is found localised in contiguous districts, this may afford a clue to the
migration of tribes.
The _Acta Sanctorum_ give information concerning a large number of
pseudo-saints, but this information to be read in its true light needs to
be supplemented by further details of local veneration and cult. Such
details are found in older books of devotion, and in modern books on
mythology and folk-lore. Modern religious writers, who treat of these
saints, are in the habit of leaving out or of slurring over all details
which suggest profanity. Compared with older legends, modern accounts of
the saints are limp and colourless, and share the weak sentimentality,
which during the last few centuries has come to pervade the conceptions
of Catholic Christianity as represented in pictorial art.
The names of a number of women whom the people hold in veneration have
escaped the attention of the compilers of the _Acta Sanctorum_, or else
they have been purposely passed over because their possessors were held
unworthy of the rank of saint. But the stories locally told of them are
worth attention, and the more so because they throw an additional light on
the stories of recognised saints.
The larger number of recognised pseudo-saints are found in the districts
into which Christianity spread as a religion of peace, or in remoter
districts where the power of the Church was less immediately felt. They
are found most often north of the Danube and east of the Rhine, especially
in the lake districts of Bavaria and Switzerland, in the marshy wilds of
the Low Countries, and in the remote forest regions of the Ardennes, the
Black Forest, the Spessart or the Vosges. Where Christianity was
established as the result of political subjection, as for example among
the Saxons, the woman pseudo-saint is hardly found at all. Perhaps the
heathenism of the Saxons differed from the heathenism of other German
folk; perhaps, like the Anglo-Saxons in England, the Saxons were
conquerors of the land they inhabited and by moving out of their old homes
had lost their local associations and their primitive cult. But, however
this may be, it is not where Christianity advanced at the point of the
lance, but in the districts where its spread was due to detached efforts
of missionaries, that the woman pseudo-saint is most frequently met with.
Wandering away into forest wilds, where scattered clearings lay like
islets in an ocean, the missionary sought a retreat remote from the
interference of government, remote also from the interference of the
episcopate, where he could realise his hope of living a worthier life.
Naturally his success largely depended on his securing the goodwill of the
people in whose neighbourhood he settled. He was obliged to adapt himself
to their mode of thought if he would win favour for his faith, and to
realise their views if he wished to modify them in the direction of his
own. To bridge over the abyss which separated his standard of life from
theirs, he was bound to defer whenever he could to their sentiments and to
their conceptions of holiness.
How far these holy men ignored, how far they countenanced, the worship of
local divinities, necessarily remains an open question. Rightly or
wrongly popular tradition readily coupled the names of these early
Christians with those of its favourite women-saints.
Thus Willibrord, the Anglo-Saxon missionary who settled abroad in the
eighth century, is said to have taken up and translated relics of the
woman-saint Cunera and to have recognised her claim to veneration; her
cult is localised in various places near Utrecht. The life of Willibrord
(† 739), written by Alcuin († 804), contains no mention of Cunera, for the
information we have concerning Willibrord’s interest in her is to be found
in the account of her life written centuries later[37]. This account
offers such a picturesque medley of chronological impossibilities that the
commentators of the _Acta Sanctorum_ have entirely recast it.
The gist of the legend as told in the beginning of the 14th century is as
follows[38]. Cunera was among the virgin companions of St Ursula, and the
date of her murder, near Cöln, is given as 387, or as 449. Before the
murder Cunera was borne away from Cöln by King Radbod of Friesland, who
covered her with his cloak, an ancient symbolic form of appropriation.
Arrived at Renen he entrusted her with the keys of his kingdom, which
incensed his wedded wife to such an extent that she caused Cunera to be
strangled and the body hidden away. But the site where the saint lay was
miraculously pointed out, and the wicked queen went mad and destroyed
herself. In vain we ask why a king of the Frisians, who persistently clung
to their heathendom, should be interested in a Christian virgin and carry
her off to preside over his household, and in vain we look for the
assertion or for the proof that Cunera was a Christian at all. The _Acta
Sanctorum_ reject the connection between Cunera and St Ursula of Cöln, but
the writer Kist, who considers her to have been a real Christian
individual, argues in favour of it. In the 12th century we find a certain
Adelheid swearing to the rightfulness of her cause on the relics of St
Cunera at Renen[39].
Similarly the story goes that Agilfrid, abbot of the monastery of St Bavon
in Flanders, afterwards bishop of Liège (765-787), about the year 754
acquired the relics of the woman-saint Pharaildis and brought them to
Ghent[40]. When the Northmen ravaged Flanders in 846 the bones of
Pharaildis were among those carried away to St Omer by the Christians as
their most valued possession, and in 939 they were brought back to
Ghent[41].
The legend of Pharaildis gives no clue to the Christian interest in her,
nor to the veneration of her, which is localised at Ghent, Hamm,
Steenockerzeel, and Loo. We hear that she was married against her
inclination, that she cured her husband who was a huntsman of a wound, and
that after his death she dwelt in solitude to an advanced age, and that
occasionally she wrought miracles. Further, in popular belief, she crossed
the water dryshod, she chased away geese from the corn, and she struck the
ground and the holy fountain at Bruay welled up for the benefit of the
harvesters--incidents which are not peculiar to her legend. The festival
of Pharaildis is kept on different dates at Ghent, Cambray, Maastricht and
Breda. At Ghent it is associated with a celebrated fair, the occasion for
great rejoicings among the populace. At the church of Steenockerzeel
stones of conical shape are kept which are carried round the altar on her
festival[42], in the same way as stones are kept elsewhere and considered
by some writers to be symbols of an ancient phallic cult. The legend
explains the presence of these stones by telling how the saint one day was
surreptitiously giving loaves to the poor, when her act would have been
discovered but that by intercession the loaves were transformed into
stones. This incident, the transformation of gifts secretly given to the
poor, is introduced into the legends of other women-saints, but only in
this case have I found it mentioned that the transformed food was
preserved. We shall have occasion to return to Pharaildis, whose legend
and cult offer nothing to support the view that she was an early
Christian.
There are numerous instances of a like connection between holy missionary
and woman pseudo-saint. A fair example is yielded by Leodgar (St Léger)
bishop of Autun († 678), a well-defined historical personality[43], whom
tradition makes into a near relative of Odilia, a saint widely venerated,
but whose reputed foundation of the monastery on the Hohenburg modern
criticism utterly discards[44].
But it is not only Christian missionaries who are associated with these
women-saints. Quite a number of saints have been brought into connection
with the house of the Karlings, and frequently Karl the Great himself
figures in the stories told of them. I do not presume to decide whether
the legendary accounts of these women are pure invention; some historic
truth may be embodied in the stories told of them. But judging by the
material at hand we are justified in disputing the existence of St Ida,
who is said to have been the wife of Pippin of Landen and ancestress of
the Karlings on the sole authority of the life of St Gertrud, her
daughter. This work was long held to be contemporary, but its earliest
date is now admitted to be the 11th century[45]. It is less easy to cast
discredit on the existence of the saints Amalberga, the one a virgin
saint, the other a widow, whom hagiologists find great difficulty in
distinguishing. Pharaildis, mentioned above, and the saints Ermelindis,
Reinildis and Gudila, are said to be Amalberga’s daughters, but together
with other saints of Hainault and Brabant they are very obviously
pseudo-saints. The idea of bringing Karl the Great into some relation with
them may have arisen from a twofold desire to justify traditions
concerning them and to magnify the Emperor’s importance.
In this connection it seems worth while to quote the passage in which
Grimm[46] describes the characteristic traits of the German goddess in his
German Mythology, and to consider how these traits are more or less
pronounced in the women we have called pseudo-saints.
‘It seems well,’ he says, in the opening of his chapter on goddesses, ‘to
treat of goddesses collectively as well as individually, since a common
conception underlies them all, which will thus stand out the more clearly.
They are conceived essentially as divine mothers, _travelling about_ and
_visiting mortals_, from whom mankind learn the ways and arts of
housekeeping and tilth: _spinning_, _weaving_, _guarding the hearth_,
_sowing_ and _reaping_’ (the italics are his).
The tendency of the goddess to wander from place to place is reflected in
many women pseudo-saints who are represented in their legends as
inhabiting at various periods of their lives different parts of the
district in which they are the object of veneration. Verena of northern
Switzerland dwelt first at Solothurn, where a cave, which was her
dwelling-place, is now transformed into a chapel. Later she took boat to
the place where the Aar, Reuss and Limmat meet, where she dwelt in
solitude, and her memory is preserved at a spot called the cell of Verena
(Verenazell). Later still she went to dwell at Zurzach, a place which was
celebrated for a fair, called Verena’s fair, of which more anon. All these
places are on or near the river Aar, at no inconsiderable distance from
each other. The legend, as told by Stadler, takes them all into account,
explaining how Verena came to be connected with each[47].
Similarly the legend of the saint Odilia[48], referred to above in
connection with the Hohenburg, explains how the saint comes to be
worshipped on both sides of the Rhine, a cruel father having driven her
away from home. On the eastern side of the river there is a hill of St
Odilia, Odilienberg, where there is a fountain which for its healing
powers is visited twice a year and the site of which is guarded by a
hermit. At Scherweiler there is also a site hallowed to her worship, and
local tradition explains that she stayed there as a child; according to
another version she was discovered floating in a wooden chest on the
water[49]. Finally she is said to have settled on the Hohenburg west of
the Rhine and to have founded a monastery. The critic Roth has written an
admirable article on Odilia and the monastery of Hohenburg. He shows that
the monastery was ancient and that at first it was dedicated to Christ and
St Peter, though afterwards their names were supplanted by that of St
Odilia[50]. Here, as on the other side of the Rhine, the folk celebrate
her festival by pilgrimages to a fountain which has miraculous healing
power, and by giving reverence to a sacred stone, on which Odilia is said
to have knelt so long in prayer for the soul of her wicked father, that
her knees wore holes in it[51].
We hear that other saints travelled about and stayed now at one place, now
at another. St Notburg visited different parts of the Neckar district[52],
Godeleva of Ghistelles[53] passed some time of her life in the marshy
district between Ostend and Bruges. This Godeleva is addressed in her
litany as the saint of marriage; she was buried, we are told, in a cave,
which was held holy as late as the present century. The pond, into which
she was thrown after death, for which act no reason is given, obtained,
and still retains, miraculous healing powers[54]. Her legend in other
respects offers the usual traits. She is Godeleva in some parts of the
country; in others she is Godeleina, and her life according to Potthast
was written in the 11th century by Drago, a monk of Ghistelles.
It is a curious trait in German saint-legend that the saint is often
spoken of as coming from afar--from across the sea, from Britain, from
Ireland, even from the Orkney Isles. It is thus with Ursula of Cöln,
Christiane of Dendermonde (Termonde), Lucie of Sampigny and many others.
The idea had taken root at a very early date that St Walburg, whose cult
is widespread, was identical with a sister of the missionaries, Wilibald
and Wunebald, who went from England to Germany under the auspices of the
prelate Boniface in the eighth century. We shall return to her further
on[55]. It is sufficient here to point out that there is little likeness
between the sober-minded women-missionaries of Boniface’s circle and the
woman-saint who is localised under such different aspects, sometimes as a
saint whose bones exude oil of miraculous power, sometimes as a valkyrie
who anoints warriors for battle, sometimes as a witch who on the first of
May leads forth her train to nightly riot on hill tops[56].
Again the love of home industry, which Grimm claims for mother goddesses,
is reflected in the legends of many saints, to whose real existence every
clue is wanting. This holds good especially of spinning and of weaving.
Lufthildis, whose date and whose very name are uncertain, is represented
as dwelling on a hill-top near a village and marking the limits of her
district by means of her spindle, which is preserved and can be seen to
this day in the chapel of Luftelberg, the hill which is connected with
her[57]. Lucie of Sampigny, to whose shrine women who are sterile make a
pilgrimage in order to sit on the stone consecrated to her[58]; Walburg,
referred to above; Germana, whose cult appears at Bar-sur-Aube[59]; and
one of the numerous localised saints Gertrud[60], are all connected with
the distaff. In the church of Frauenkirchen, which stands near the site of
the celebrated old abbey of Lach, St Genovefa of Brabant, whose legend is
most picturesque and who is in some degree akin to Geneviève of Paris, is
believed to be sitting behind the altar from which the buzz of her
spinning-wheel is audible[61].
Again the protective interest in silk and agriculture, which Grimm claims
for the German goddess, comes out in connection with the pseudo-saint. The
harvest festival, so often associated with the Virgin Mary, is frequently
also associated with the name of a pseudo-saint. Thus we find these saints
represented with ears of corn, as Mary too has been represented[62]. The
emblem of the three ears of corn was probably accepted owing to Roman
influence. Verena of Zurzach, Notburg of Rottenburg, and Walburg, are all
pictured holding a bunch of corn in one hand. Through the intercession of
Walburg full barns are secured, while Notburg or Nuppurg of Rottenburg,
one of the chief saints of Bavaria, to whose shrine many pilgrimages are
made, holds a reaping hook as well as a bunch of corn, and throughout the
Tyrol is looked upon as patron saint of the peasantry[63].
At Meerbeck in Brabant corn is blessed before it is sown under the
auspices of the saint Berlindis, who protects tree planting. She is a
saint of many associations and we shall hear more of her later[64]. In
some parts of Brabant seed sown at the time of the new moon in the month
of June is protected by the saint Alena. We know little of Alena except
that her arm was torn off in expiation of an unknown trespass and is kept
as a relic in the church of Voorst, and that the archduchess Maria Anna of
Spain sent for this relic in 1685 in the hope of securing a son by means
of the saint’s intercession[65]. To the shrine of Lufthildis corn is also
brought as an offering to be distributed among the poor, while St Gertrud
in Belgium protects bean and pea sowing[66].
Further traits in saint worship, which suggest woman’s connection with the
beginnings of settled civilization, are found in the pseudo-saint’s
frequent association with cattle and dairy produce.
Peasants, men and women, may be seen to this day touching in reverence the
udder of the cow which a rudely cut relief in wood represents by the side
of the saint Berlindis at Meerbeck[67]. Gunthild, the patron saint of
Biberbach in Würtemburg[68], is represented holding in her hand a
milk-jug, the contents of which were inexhaustible during her lifetime.
The connection of saints with butter-making is frequent. St Radiane,
otherwise called Radegund, is chiefly worshipped at Wellenburg near
Augsburg, and her intercession secures milk and butter in plenty to her
worshippers. She was torn in pieces by wolves[69].
Judging by her cult and her legends the pseudo-saint practises and
protects in endless ways the early arts of settled agriculture and
civilization. She herds cattle, she guards flocks of sheep, she weaves and
she spins, and she is careful of the dairy. In her representations she is
associated with ‘emblems’ which point to these various interests, and we
find her holding corn, a reaping-hook, or a spindle. Domestic animals are
pictured by her side, most frequently sheep, geese, cows and dogs. The cat
appears rarely[70], perhaps because it was associated with the evil side
of woman’s power. The besom too, the ancient symbol of woman’s authority,
is rarely, if ever[71], put into the saint’s hands, perhaps for a similar
reason.
One other peculiarity remains to be mentioned, which also has its
counterpart in the witches’ medicinal and curative power. The
pseudo-saint’s relics (after death) exude oil which is used for medicinal
purposes. This peculiarity is noticed of the bones of the saints
Walburg[72], Rolendis[73], and Edigna[74], but it is also noticed in
connection with the relics of historical saints.
But over and above these traits in the character of the pseudo-saint,
legend often points to a heathen custom in connection with her of which
we have definite information. Tacitus tells how the image of the German
goddess Nerthus was carried about on festive occasions in a chariot drawn
by cows. The pseudo-saint either during her lifetime or after her death
was often similarly conveyed. Sometimes the animals put themselves to her
chariot of their own accord, frequently they stopped of their own accord
at the particular spot which the saint wished to be her last
resting-place. Legend tells us of such incidents in connection also with
historical saints, both men and women, and we hear further that the relics
of saints sometimes and quite suddenly became so heavy that it was
impossible to move them, a sure sign that it was safest not to try.
So far the parallels between mother-goddess and woman pseudo-saint recall
the practices of the heathen past, without actually offending against the
tenor of Christianity. But the pseudo-saint has other associations of
which this cannot be said, associations which are utterly perplexing,
unless we go back for their explanation to the ancient tribal usages when
the meeting of the tribe was the occasion for settling matters social and
sexual. These associations introduce us to an aspect of the cult of the
saints which brings primitive usages into an even clearer light, and shows
how religious associations continued independently of a change of
religion.
§ 3. Further Peculiarities of this Type of Saint.
The Church, as mentioned above, had put every facility in the way of
transforming heathen festivals into its own festal days. The heathen
festival in many ways carried on the traditions of the tribal festival;
the tribal festival was connected with the cult of tribal goddesses. If we
bear in mind the many points mother-goddess, witch, and woman pseudo-saint
have in common, the association of the pseudo-saint with practices of a
profane character no longer appears wonderful. Both in the turn saint
legend takes, and in the character of festivities associated with the
saint’s name, we discern the survival of ideas which properly belong to
differently constituted family and social arrangements, the true meaning
of which is all but lost.
On looking through the legends of many women-saints, it is surprising how
often we find evil practices and heathen traditions associated with them,
practices and traditions which the legend writer naturally is often at a
loss to explain in a manner acceptable to Christianity. Thus the father
of St Christiane of Dendermonde is said to have set up a temple where
girls did service to Venus[75]; doing service to Venus being the usual way
of describing licentious pursuits.
In the metrical life of Bilihild, patron saint of Würzburg and Mainz, a
description is introduced of the marriage festival as it was celebrated by
the Franks in the Main district about the year 600, as this account would
have it. Dances took place and unions were contracted for the commencing
year. The Christian woman Bilihild was present at the festival, though we
are of course told that she found it little to her taste and determined to
abolish it[76]. The legend of Bilihild has very primitive traits and is
wanting in historical foundation and probability; and it is at least
curious that her name should be coupled with a festival which Christian
religion and morality must have condemned.
Again it is curious to find how often these women-saints die a violent
death, not for conscience sake, nor indeed for any obvious reason at all.
Radiane of Wellenburg, as mentioned above, was torn to pieces by
wolves[77]; Wolfsindis of Reisbach, according to one account, was tied to
wild oxen who tore her to pieces, according to another version of her
story she was tied to a horse’s tail[78]. St Regina of Alise, in the
bishopric of Autun, is sometimes represented surrounded by flames,
sometimes in a steaming caldron[79] which recalls the caldron of
regeneration of Keltic mythology.
Frequently the saints are said to have been murdered like Cunera of
Renen[80], and St Sura otherwise Soteris or Zuwarda of Dordrecht[81];
sometimes their heads are cut off as in the case of Germana worshipped at
Beaufort in Champagne[82]; sometimes like Godeleva they are strangled, and
sometimes burnt; but Christianity is not the reason assigned for their
painful deaths. For even the legend writer does not go so far as to bring
in martyrdom at a period and in districts where suffering for the
Christian faith is altogether out of the question.
Panzer tells us about a group of three women-saints, to whom we shall
presently return. He says in some churches masses are read for their souls
and prayers offered for their salvation. Though reverenced by the people
in many districts of Germany, they are as often said to have been hostile
to Christianity as favourably disposed towards it[83].
We find immoral practices and violence ascribed to some of the English
women-saints by Capgrave in the 15th century. He says of Inthware or
Iuthware, who perhaps belongs to Brittany, that she was accused of being a
harlot and put to death. Similarly he says of Osman or Oswen that she was
accused of being a witch, but when brought before a bishop she consented
to be baptized[84]. Stanton notifies of Iuthware that her translation was
celebrated at Shirbourne[85]. Winifred too, who is worshipped in
Shropshire, had her head cut off and it rolled right down the hill to a
spot where a fountain sprang up, near St Winifred’s well. The head however
was miraculously replaced, Winifred revived and lived to the end of her
days as a nun[86]. The want of information about these women makes it
impossible to judge how far their existence is purely legendary; certainly
their stories are largely coloured by heathen traditions. The names
Iuthware and Oswen are probably not Germanic; and the fact of Winifred’s
living on the confines of Wales makes it probable that she is a Keltic
rather than a Germanic saint.
In connection with the festivals of some women pseudo-saints we find
celebrations of a decidedly uproarious character taking place at a
comparatively recent time. The feast of St Pharaildis, called locally Fru
Verelde, used to be the chief holiday at Ghent, and was the occasion for
much festivity and merrymaking[87]. At Lüttich (Liège) stood a chapel
dedicated to St Balbine, who is said to have been venerated far and wide
in the 14th century. On her day, the first of May, there was a festival
called Babilone at which dancing was kept up till late at night[88]. The
festival of St Godeleva kept at Longuefort maintained even in the 18th
century a character which led to a violent dispute between the populace
and the Church dignitaries, who were determined to put it down[89].
Coincident with the festival known as the day of St Berlindis, a saint
frequently referred to as a protectress of the peasantry, there is a
festival called the Drunken Vespers, in which as early as the 16th century
the archbishop forbade his clergy to take part[90].
But by far the most striking and the most conclusive instances of the
pseudo-saint’s association with heathen survivals are afforded by St
Verena of Switzerland and St Afra of Augsburg, whose worship and history
we must examine more closely.
Verena’s association with various rites has already been referred to; she
is represented sometimes with ears of corn, sometimes accompanied by a
cat, and sometimes, which is even more suggestive, she is brought into
connection with a brothel. The procession of St Verena’s day from Zurzach
to a chapel dedicated to St Maurice passed an old linden tree which, so
the legend goes, marked the spot where the saint used to dwell. Hard by
was a house for lepers and a house of ill fame, where on the same day the
district bailiff (landvogt) opened the fair. He was obliged by old custom
to pass this tree, at which a loose woman stood awaiting him, and to dance
round the tree with her and give her money[91].
The legend of St Verena written between 1005 and 1032[92] does not explain
these associations. We are told of a woman who came from the east with the
Theban legion, which is generally supposed to have been massacred in 287.
She is said to have made her home now in one district now in another, and
one modern writer goes so far as to suggest that she was zealous in
converting the Allemans to Christianity before the coming of Irish
missionaries.
According to folk-custom in districts between the Aar and the Rhine, girls
who have secured husbands sacrifice their little maiden caps to Verena. At
Zurzach married couples make pilgrimages to the Verenastift in order to
secure offspring. Several dukes of the Allemans and their wives made such
pilgrimages in the 9th and 10th centuries. It would lead too far to
enumerate the many directions in which Verena is associated with
heathendom. Her day, which comes at the harvest festival, was a time of
unrestrained license in Zurzach, a fact on which the _Acta Sanctorum_
cast no doubt.
Rochholz considers Verena to be a tribal mother of heathendom; Simrock in
his mythology considers her to be identical with the goddess Fru Frene, in
whom he sees a kind of German Venus[93]. Grimm tells how the version of
the Tannhäuser saga, current in Switzerland, substitutes the name Frau
Frene for that of Frau Venus[94]. The hero Tannhäuser, according to
mediæval legend, wavers between a baser and a higher interpretation of
love; the acceptance of the name Frene as representative of sensuousness
shows the associations currently preserved in connection with this
so-called saint.
A similar association occurs in Belgium, where a saint Vreken (_Sint
Vreke_), otherwise Vrouw Vreke, in mediæval legend is the representative
of sensual as opposed to spiritual love. Corémans describes how in the
version of the saga of the faithful Eckhardt (_Van het trouwen Eckhout_)
current in Belgium, the hero wavers between spiritual love of Our Lady and
sensual love of Vreke. Among the folk Vrouw Vreke is a powerful personage,
for the story goes that the Kabauters, evil spirits who dwell on the
Kabauterberg, are in her service. In the book _Reta de Limbourg_, which
was re-written in the 17th century, the Kabauterberg becomes a Venusberg,
and Vreke is no longer a great witch (_eene grote heks_) but a goddess
with all the alluring charms of Venus[95]. Grimm includes a Fru Freke
among his German goddesses[96]. She retains her old importance among the
folk as a protective saint and presides over tree-planting[97].
Like the saints Verena and Vreke, St Afra of Augsburg is associated with
licentiousness; Wessely expressly calls her the patron saint of
hetairism[98]. Her legend explains the connection in a peculiar manner; as
told by Berno, abbot of Reichenau († 1048), it is most picturesque. We
hear how Afra and her mother came from Cyprus, an island which mediæval,
following the classical writers, associated with the cult of Venus, and
how she settled at Augsburg and kept a house of ill fame with three
companions. Here they entertained certain Church dignitaries (otherwise
unknown to history) who persuaded the women to embrace Christianity and
give up their evil practices. They became virtuous, and when persecutions
against Christians were instituted they all suffered martyrdom; Afra was
placed on a small island and burnt at the stake[99]. The legend writer on
the basis of the previous statement places the existence of these women in
the early part of the fourth century during the reign of Diocletian.
Curiously enough the legend of Afra is led up to by a description of the
worship of the heathen goddess Zisa, a description to which Grimm attaches
great importance[100]. This goddess was worshipped at or near Augsburg.
Velserus[101], who in the 16th century compiled a chronicle of Augsburg,
gives us a mass of information about traditions connected with her and her
worship, as he also does about St Afra. There is in his mind of course no
shadow of a suspicion of any connection between them. But he informs us
that the Zizenberg, or hill of Zisa, and the Affenwald which he interprets
as Afrawald or wood of Afra, are one and the same place.
Berno also wrote a life of Ulrich (St Udalricus), bishop of Augsburg (†
973), who boldly defended the town at the time of the invasion of the
Hungarians. In this life the bishop has a miraculous vision of St Afra,
who takes him on a pilgrimage by night and points out the site where he
afterwards founded a monastery, known to later ages as the monastery of St
Ulrich and St Afra. The worship of Afra is referred to by the poet
Fortunatus as early as the sixth century; the story of the saint’s
martyrdom is older than that of her conversion. The historian Rettberg is
puzzled why so much stress should be laid on her evil ways[102]; but the
historian Friedrich, regardless of perplexing associations, sees the
beginnings of convent life for women in Augsburg in the fact of Afra and
her companions dwelling together between their conversion and
martyrdom[103].
There are other traits in saint legend which point to the customs and
arrangements of a more primitive period, and tempt the student to fit
together pieces of the past and the present which appear meaningless if
taken separately.
It seems probable that in early times the term mother was applied to a
number of women of a definite group by all the children of the group, and
that the word had not the specialized meaning of one who had actually
borne the children who termed her mother.
The story of a number of children all being born at once by one woman is
possibly due to a confused tradition dating from this period. In local
saga, both in Germany and elsewhere, there are stories in which a woman
suddenly finds herself in the possession of a number of offspring, and
often with direful consequences to herself, because of the anger of her
husband. The same incident has found its way into saint legend. Thus
Notburg, patron saint of Sulz, had at a birth a number of children,
variously quoted as nine, twelve and thirty-six. Stadler says that she is
represented at Sulz holding eight children in her arms, a ninth one lying
dead at her feet[104]. Lacking water to christen these children, she
produced from the hard rock a fountain which even to the present day is
believed to retain the power to cure disease.
A similar story is told of Achachildis, popularly known as Atzin, who is
held in veneration at Wendelstein near Schwabach. She bore her husband
five children at once and then took a vow of continence. Her legend has
never been written, but she enjoys a great reputation for holiness, and a
series of pictures represent various incidents in her life[105].
Images of women sheltering children, usually beneath their cloaks, are
frequently found abroad built into the outer wall of the church, the place
where Christian teachers felt justified in placing heathen images[106].
Students of pictorial art will here recall the image of St Ursula at Cöln
sheltering 11,000 virgins under her cloak.
Again there are other emblems in saint worship which cannot be easily
accounted for, such for instance as the holy combs of Verena and
Pharaildis, which remind one of the comb with which the witch Lorelei sat
combing her hair, or, on classic soil, of the comb of the Venus Calvata;
or the holy slippers of St Radiane, which are preserved to this day in
the church of Wellenburg and which, as Stadler informs us, had been
re-soled within his time[107]. Slippers and shoes are ancient symbols of
appropriation, and as such figure in folk-lore and at weddings in many
countries to this day. The golden slipper was likewise a feature at the
witches’ festival, in which the youthful fiddler also figured[108]. Both
the golden slipper and the youthful fiddler form important features in the
legend of the saint Ontkommer or Wilgefortis. The images and legend of
this saint are so peculiar that they claim a detailed account.
It is evident from what has been said that the legends and cult of many
women pseudo-saints have traits in common; indeed the acts ascribed to
different saints are often exactly similar. The stories of Notburg of
Rottenburg, of Radiane of Wellenburg, and of Gunthild of Biberbach, as
Stadler remarks, are precisely alike; yet it is never suggested that these
saints should be treated as one; each of them has her place in the _Acta
Sanctorum_ and is looked upon as distinct from the others.
There is, however, a set of women-saints whose images and legends have
features so distinctive that hagiologists treat of them collectively as
one, though they are held in veneration in districts widely remote from
each other, and under very dissimilar names.
The saint, who is venerated in the Low Countries as Ontkommer or
Wilgefortis, is usually considered identical with the saint Kümmerniss of
Bavaria and the Tyrol; with the saint Livrade, Liberata or Liberatrix
venerated in some districts of France as early as the 9th century when
Usuard, writing in the monastery of St Germain-des-Près, mentions her;
with Gehulff of Mainz; with Hilp of the Hülfensberg at Eichsfelde; and
with others called variously Regenfled, Regenfrith, Eutropia, etc.[109]
The name Mariahilf, which is very common in south Germany, is probably a
combination of the name of the Virgin Mother with that of St Hilp or St
Gehulff.
The legends of this saint, or rather of this assembly of saints, are
characterized by Cuper in the _Acta Sanctorum_ as an endless
labyrinth[110]. Whatever origin be ascribed to them, when once we examine
them closely we find explanation impossible on the hypothesis that they
relate to a single Christian woman living during Christian times.
A considerable amount of information on this group of saints has lately
been collected by Sloet, who deals also with their iconography[111]. The
peculiarity of the images of Ontkommer or Kümmerniss consists in this,
that she is represented as crucified, and that the lower part of her face
is covered by a beard, and her body in some instances by long shaggy fur.
Her legend explains the presence of the beard and fur by telling us that
it grew to protect the maiden from the persecutions of a lover or the
incestuous love of her father; such love is frequently mentioned in the
legends of women pseudo-saints.
The fact that Ontkommer or Kümmerniss is represented as crucified might be
explained on the hypothesis that the common folk could not at first grasp
the idea of a god and looked upon Christ as a woman, inventing the legend
of the woman’s persecution and miraculous protection in order to account
for the presence of the beard. But other accessories of the
representations of Ontkommer or Kümmerniss lead us to suppose that her
martyrdom, like that of other saints, has a different origin and that she
is heiress to a tribal goddess of the past[112].
In many of her representations Ontkommer or Kümmerniss is seen hanging on
the cross with only one golden slipper on, but sometimes she wears two
slippers, and a young man is sitting below the cross playing the fiddle.
Legend accounts for the presence of this young man in the following
manner. He came and sat at the foot of the image and was playing on his
fiddle, when the crucified saint suddenly awoke to life, drew off a
slipper and flung it to him. He took it away with him, but he was accused
of having stolen it and condemned to death. His accusers however agreed to
his request to come with him into the presence of the holy image, to which
he appealed. Again the crucified saint awoke to life and drew off her
second slipper and flung it to the fiddler, whose innocence was thereby
vindicated and he was set free. Where shall we go for a clue to this
curious and complicated legend? Grimm tells us that a young fiddler was
present at a festival of the witches, and that he played at the dance in
which he was not allowed to take part. Grimm also tells us that one of the
witches on this occasion wore only one golden slipper[113]. The
association of Kümmerniss with a golden slipper is deep-rooted, especially
in Bavaria, for the saying goes there that ‘She with the golden slipper
and with the youthful fiddler is also a mother of God[114].’
Many years ago Menzel wrote[115]: ‘Much I believe concerning this saint is
derived from heathen conceptions.’ Stories embodying heathen traditions
are preserved in connection with this saint in districts abroad that lie
far apart.
Thus the image of her which is preserved in North Holland is said to have
come floating down the river, like the images of the Virgin referred to
above. At Regensburg in Bavaria an image is preserved which is said to
have been cast into the water at Neufarn. It was carried down by the river
and thrown on the bank, and the bishop fetched it to Regensburg on a car
drawn by oxen. In the Tyrol the image of the saint is sometimes hung in
the chief bed-room of the house in order to secure a fruitful marriage,
but often too it is hung in chapel and cloister in order to protect the
dead. Images of the saint are preserved and venerated in a great number of
churches in Bavaria and the Tyrol, but the ideas popularly associated with
them have raised feelings in the Church against their cult. We hear that a
Franciscan friar in the beginning of this century destroyed one of the
images, and that the bishop of Augsburg in 1833 attempted in one instance
to do away with the image and the veneration of the saint, but refrained
from carrying out his intention, being afraid of the anger of the
people[116].
It has been mentioned above that associations of a twofold character
survive in connection with Verena and Vreke, who are to this day popularly
reckoned as saints, but who are introduced in mediæval romance as
representatives of earthly love as contrasted with spiritual. Associations
of a twofold character have also been attached to the term Kümmerniss. For
in the Tyrol Kümmerniss is venerated as a saint, but the word Kümmerniss
in ordinary parlance is applied to immoral women[117].
Other heathen survivals are found attached to the Ontkommer-Kümmerniss
group of saints. At Luzern the festival of the saint was connected with so
much riotous merrymaking and licentiousness that it was forbidden in 1799
and again in 1801. The story is told of the saint under the name Liberata
that she was one of a number of children whom her mother had at a
birth[118].
Sloet, on the authority of the philologist Kern, considers that the
various names by which the saint is known in different districts are
appellatives and have the same underlying meaning of one who is helpful in
trouble. According to him this forms the connecting link between the names
Ontkommer, Kümmerniss, Wilgefortis, Gehulff, Eutropia, etc., of which the
form Ontkommer, philologically speaking, most clearly connotes the saint’s
character, and on this ground is declared to be the original form. The
saint is worshipped at Steenberg in Holland under the name Ontkommer, and
Sloet is of opinion that Holland is the cradle of the worship of the whole
group of saints[119]. But considering what we know of other women-saints
it seems more probable that the saints who have been collected into this
group are the outcome of a period of social evolution, which in various
districts led to the establishment of tribal goddesses, who by a later
development assumed the garb of Christian women-saints.
The cult of women-saints under one more aspect remains to be chronicled.
Numerous traditions are preserved concerning the cult of holy women in
triads, who are locally held in great veneration and variously spoken of
as three sisters, three ladies, three Marys, three nuns, or three
women-saints.
The three holy women have a parallel in the three Fates of classic
mythology and in the three Norns of Norse saga, and like them they
probably date from a heathen period. Throughout Germany they frequently
appear in folk-lore and saga, besides being venerated in many instances as
three women-saints of the Church.
In stories now current these three women are conceived sometimes as
sisters protecting the people, sometimes as ladies guarding treasures, and
sometimes as a group of three nuns living together and founding chapels
and oratories, and this too in places where history knows nothing of the
existence of any religious settlement of women.
Panzer has collected a mass of information on the cult of the triad as
saints in southern Germany[120]; Corémans says that the veneration of the
Three Sisters (_dry-susters_) is widespread in Belgium[121], but the
Church has sanctioned this popular cult in comparatively few instances.
The story is locally current that these three women were favourably
disposed to the people and bequeathed to them what is now communal
property. Simrock considers that this property included sites which were
held sacred through association with a heathen cult[122]. ‘In heathen
times,’ he says, ‘a sacred grove was hallowed to the sister fates which
after the establishment of Christianity continued to be the property of
the commune. The remembrance of these helpful women who were the old
benefactresses of the place remained, even their association with holiness
continued.’ By these means in course of time the cult of the three
goddesses was transformed into that of Christian saints.
Besides bequeathing their property to the people it was thought that these
three women-saints protected their agricultural and domestic interests,
especially as affecting women. In Schlehdorf in Lower Bavaria pilgrimages
by night were made to the shrine of the triad to avert the cattle plague;
the shrine stood on a hill which used to be surrounded by water, and at
one time was the site of a celebrated fair and the place chosen for
keeping the harvest festival[123]. At Brusthem in Belgium there were three
wells into which women who sought the aid of these holy women cast three
things, linen-thread, a needle and some corn[124]. Again in Schildturn in
Upper Bavaria an image of the three women-saints is preserved in the
church which bears an inscription to the effect that through the
intercession of these saints offspring are secured and that they are
helpful at childbirth[125]. In the same church a wooden cradle is kept
which women who wished to become mothers used to set rocking. A second
cradle which is plated is kept in the sacristy, and has been substituted
for one of real silver[126].
In some districts one of these three saints is credited with special power
over the others either for good or for evil. The story goes that one of
the sisters was coloured black or else black and white[127].
In many places where the triad is worshipped the names of the individual
sisters are lost, while in districts far apart from one another, as the
Tyrol, Elsass, Bavaria, their names have considerable likeness. The forms
generally accepted, but liable to fluctuation, are St Einbeth, St Warbeth
and St Wilbeth[128]. The Church in some instances seems to have hesitated
about accepting these names, it may be from the underlying meaning of the
suffix _beth_ which Grimm interprets as holy site, _ara_, _fanum_, but
Mannhardt connects it with the word to pray (beten)[129]. Certainly the
heathen element is strong when we get traditions of the presence of these
women at weddings and at burials, and stories of how they went to war,
riding on horses, and achieved even more than the men[130]. Where their
claim to Christian reverence is admitted by the Church, the stories told
about them have a very different ring.
According to the legend which has been incorporated into the _Acta
Sanctorum_, St Einbetta, St Verbetta, and St Villbetta were Christian
maidens who undertook the pilgrimage to Rome with St Ursula, with whose
legend they are thus brought into connection. The three sisters stayed
behind at Strasburg and so escaped the massacre of the 11000 virgins[131].
The tendency to group women-saints into triads is very general. Kunigund,
Mechtund and Wibrandis are women-saints who belong to the portion of Baden
in the diocese of Constance[132]. The locus of their cult is in separate
villages, but they are venerated as a triad in connection with a holy well
and lie buried together under an ancient oak[133]. We hear also of
pilgrimages being made to the image of three holy sisters preserved at Auw
on the Kyll in the valley of the Mosel. They are represented as sitting
side by side on the back of an ass(?), one of them having a cloth tied
over her eyes. The three sisters in this case are known as Irmina, Adela
and Chlotildis, and it is said they were the daughters or sisters of King
Dagobert[134]. Irmina and Adela are historical; they founded nunneries in
the diocese of Trier.
In another instance the sisters are called Pellmerge, Schwellmerge and
Krischmerge, _merg_ being a popular form of the name Mary which is
preserved in many place-names[135].
I have been able to discover little reference to local veneration of
saints in a triad in England. But there is a story that a swineherd in
Mercia had a vision in a wood of three women who, as he believed, were the
three Marys, and who pointed out to him the spot where he was to found a
religious settlement, which was afterwards known as Evesham.
A curious side-light is thrown on the veneration of the three women-saints
abroad by recalling the images and inscriptions about Mothers and Matrons,
which are preserved on altars fashioned long before the introduction of
Christianity under heathen influence.
These altars have been found in outlying parts of the Roman Empire,
especially in the districts contiguous to the ancient boundary line which
divided Roman territory from Germania Magna. They bear inscriptions in
Latin to the effect that they are dedicated to Mothers and Matrons, and
sometimes it is added that they have been set up at the command of these
divine Mothers themselves. The words _imperio ipsarum_, ‘by their own
command,’ are added to the formula of dedication, and as it seems that
they never occur on altars set up and dedicated to specified Roman or
Gallo-Roman divinities, they yield an interesting proof of the wide-spread
character of the worship of tribal goddesses[136].
At one time it was supposed that these altars were of Keltic origin, but
some of the tribes mentioned in their inscriptions have been identified
with place-names in Germany. Altars found in outlying parts of the Empire
primarily served for the use of the soldiery, for sacrifice at the altar
of the gods was a needful preliminary to Roman military undertakings. The
view has been advanced that, as the altars dedicated to pagan divinities
served for the devotions of the Roman and Gallo-Roman troops, it is
possible that these other altars dedicated to Mothers served for the
devotions of the German heathen soldiery, who were drafted from districts
beyond the Rhine, and at an early date made part of the Roman legions.
The parallels between the mothers of the stones and the three women-saints
are certainly remarkable.
Where a representation, generally in rude relief, occurs on the altar
stones, the Mothers are represented in a group of three, holding as
emblems of their power fruit, flowers, and the spindle. These recall the
emblems both of the heathen goddess of mythology and of the pseudo-saint.
Moreover one of the Mothers of the altars is invariably distinguished by
some peculiarity, generally by a want of the head-dress or head-gear worn
by the two others, perhaps indicative of her greater importance. This has
its parallel in the peculiar power with which one member of the saint
triad is popularly credited.
The erection of the altars belongs to a time before the introduction of
Christianity; our information about the three women-saints dates back
earlier than the 12th century in a few cases only; it chiefly depends on
stories locally current which have been gleaned within the last hundred
years. If the hypothesis of the mother-age preceding the father-age holds
good, if the divine Mothers imaged on the stones are witnesses to a
wide-spread worship of female deities during the period of established
Roman rule, these tales told of the triad carry us back nearly twenty
centuries. The power ascribed to tribal goddesses in a distant heathen
past survived in the power ascribed to Christian women-saints; the
deep-rooted belief in protective women-divinities enduring with undying
persistence in spite of changes of religion.
In conclusion, a few words may be acceptable on the names of
pseudo-saints, which I believe to be largely epithetic or appellative.
Grimm holds that the names of the German goddesses were originally
appellatives. In a few cases the name of the goddess actually becomes the
name of a saint. Mythology and hagiology both lay claim to a Vrene and a
Vreke; but from the nature of things these cases are rare. The conception
of the protective divinity is ancient; her name in a philological sense is
comparatively new.
With few exceptions the names are German; sometimes in contiguous
districts variations of the same name are preserved. The saint Lufthildis
is sometimes Linthildis[137]; Rolendis is sometimes Dollendis[138]; Ida,
Itta, Iduberga, Gisleberga are saints of Brabant and Flanders, whom
hagiologists have taken great trouble to keep separate. In some cases the
name of a real and that of a fictitious person may have become confounded.
The names are all cognate with the word _itis_, an ancient term applied to
the woman who exercised sacred functions.
The attempt to connect the group Ontkommer-Wilgefortis by the underlying
meaning of the several names has been mentioned. It has also been
mentioned that this saint is sometimes spoken of as a mother of God.
Similarly St Geneviève of Paris is worshipped as Notre-Dame-la-petite, and
again the saint Cunera of Reenen is popularly known as Knertje, which
signifies little lady[139].
On every side the student is tempted to stray from the straightforward
road of fact into the winding paths of speculation. The frequent
association abroad of female deities with hill tops suggests a possible
explanation why the word _berg_, which means remoteness and height, so
often forms part of the name of the woman pseudo-saint, and of women’s
names generally. For the beginnings of tilth and agriculture are now
sought not in the swampy lowlands, but on the heights where a clearance
brought sunlight and fruitfulness. Hill tops to this day are connected
with holy rites. Is it possible that the word _berg_, designating hill
top, should have become an appellative for woman because the settlements
on the hills were specially connected with her?
Philology hitherto has been content to trace to a common origin words
cognate in different languages, and on the conceptions attaching to these
words, to build up theories about the state of civilization of various
peoples at a period previous to their dispersion from a common home. But
the study of local beliefs and superstitions in western Europe tends more
and more to prove that usages pointing to a very primitive mode of life
and to a very primitive state of civilization are indissolubly connected
with certain sites; and that the beginnings of what we usually term
civilization, far from being imported, have largely developed on native
soil.
Thus, at the very outset of our enquiry into saint-worship and the convent
life of the past, we have found ourselves confronted by a class of
women-saints who must be looked upon as survivals from heathen times, and
who are in no way connected with the beginnings of Christianity and of
convent life; their reputation rests on their connection with some
hallowed site of the heathen period and the persistence of popular faith
in them. But the feeling underlying the attribution of holiness to them,
the desire for localized saints, yields the clue to the ready raising to
saintship of those women who in England, in France, and in Germany, showed
appreciation of the possibilities offered to them by Christianity, and
founded religious settlements. In some cases superstitions of a heathen
nature which are of value to the hagiologist, if not to the historian,
cling to these women also, but fortunately a considerable amount of
trustworthy material is extant about their lives. These women during the
earliest period were zealous in the cause of Christianity, and it is to
them that our enquiry now turns.