Lina Eckenstein

“ All the qualities in Matilda, Hedwig, Anna, and Agnes which made them beloved and venerated appear to meet in Elisabeth. A loving wife, a pious mother, a faithful widow, the comforter of the sick and the protector of the poor, she stands on the threshold of a new era, indifferent to the prejudices of her age, regardless of its derogatory criticism, intent only on carrying into effect the promptings dictated by a keener sense of sympathy with suffering and a closer appreciation of the needs of others than her contemporaries could generally grasp. ”

“ But, as far as I have been able to ascertain, a convent education remained the sole training of which a girl could avail herself outside the home circle. For the universities absolutely ignored the existence of woman as a being desirous or capable of acquiring knowledge, and the teaching at the mediæval university was so ordered that students ranged in age from the merest boyhood to manhood. These centres then, by ignoring the existence of women, appropriated to men not only the privileges of a higher education, but also all knowledge from its rudiments upwards. ”

“ Speaking of Plutarch she confessed that ‘he writes not like an unbelieving heathen but like a learned divine and imitator of Christian perfection. It is a wonderful circumstance which has filled me with joy and surprise.’ But she thought her brother’s praise of her excessive. ‘I am not learned myself, only the friend of those who are learned; I am no writer, I only enjoy reading the writings of others; I am unworthy of so precious a gift, though in truth you have done well and wisely in placing the word Charitas at the head of your work. ”

“ The crowd of comely servants all dwelling together were smitten to the dust in one day; the brilliant circle, the multitude of powerful dependents, no grave contains them, they lack the honours of death. More brilliant than the fire shone the gold of her hair, that of my father’s sister, who lay felled to the ground, white as milk. Alas, for the corpses unburied that cover the battle-field, a whole people collected together in one burial place. Not Troy alone bewails her destruction, the land of Thüringen has experienced a like carnage. ”

“ Thou art timid, timid in speech, artless in explaining, unlearned in writing, but express and write not according to art but according to natural ability, not under the guidance of human composition but under the guidance of that which thou seest and hearest in God’s heaven above; what thus thou hearest proclaim, like a listener who understanding the words of his teacher, as this teacher wills and indicates, so gives expression to his words according to the power of his speech. ”

“ He desires beauteous virgins and drives forth women who are unchaste. With a dove-like faith call upon that your Bridegroom, that your beauty may become an unbroken glory. Living without guile, be admonished by praisegiving, so that you may complete your best works of ascent. Do not hesitate amidst the doubtful currents of the world, the truthful God holds out rewards after danger. Suffer hardships now, despising the world’s prosperity, be now fellow of the cross, hereafter sharer of the kingdom. Steer across the ocean freighted with holiness, till you leave the bark and land in Sion. ”

“ The so-called dark ages, the centuries between 800 and 1200, cease to be dark as soon as one enquires into the contents of monastic libraries, and the monotony of convent routine ceases to appear monotonous on entering one of the old treasuries and reflecting on the aims and aspirations which were devoted to producing this wealth in design and ornamentation, the bare fragmentary remains of which are to us of to-day a source of unending delight and wonder. ”

“ For in this dark remoteness among German peoples man must come to the distress of death had he not the word of God as a lamp unto his feet and as a light unto his paths [379] . Fully trusting in your love I beseech that you pray for me, for I am shaken by my shortcomings, that take hold of me as though I were tossed by a tempest on a dangerous sea.’ This consciousness of his shortcomings was not wholly due to the failure of his plans, for Boniface at one period of his life was much troubled by questions of theology. The simile of being tempest-tossed is often used by him. ”

“ Our age has witnessed a great spread of philanthropic interest and charitable zeal among women of the educated classes; a wave of feeling, similar to that which swept over mankind in the 13th century, bears down all other considerations when there are outcasts to be rescued and suffering to be alleviated. Nursing the sick has become a distinct and a respected profession; the administration of charity, an education in itself, is absorbing some of the best energies of the community, and women who seek to rescue suffering humanity are at last enabled to do so by the guiding hand of science. ”

“ In 1214 Gertrud, Elisabeth’s mother, was assassinated, a victim of the revolt of the Hungarians against German ascendency. Thüringen and the Wartburg on the contrary were the seat of the greatest refinement of which the age of romance in German lands proved capable. Landgrave Hermann, a prince of uncertain politics, but a zealous patron of art, had drawn thither the lyric poets of the age, whose brilliant assemblies and contests in the eyes of posterity are surrounded with the halo of a tournament in song. ”

“ The last pages of the history of several of the great abbeys are full of traits of heroism; one cannot read without sympathy of the way in which for example the abbot of Glastonbury identified himself with the system to which he belonged, and perished with it rather than be divided from it. The staunch faith of the friars no less commands respect. The heads of women’s houses naturally made less opposition. However Florence Bannerman, abbess of Amesbury, refused every attempt to bribe or force her into a surrender. ”

“ A poor girl longing to hear mass felt herself transported into the church of heaven, where at first she could see no one. Presently youths entered strewing flowers,—white flowers beneath the church tower, violets along the nave, roses before the Virgin’s altar, and lilies throughout the choir. Others came and lighted candles, and then John the Baptist entered bearing the lamb, which he set on the altar and prepared to read mass. John the Evangelist came next, St Peter and so many more of heaven’s inmates that the poor girl felt there was no room left for her in the nave of the church. ”

“ But as the old writer with a play on the words armarium, book-case, and armatorium, armoury, remarks, ‘a monastery without its book-case is what a castle is without its armoury.’ And all houses, whether for monks or nuns, took rank as centres of culture in proportion to their wealth in books. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The jasper which is green is typical of the power of eternal divinity, gold represents love, and the red stone the sufferings which He endured through love of us. The mountain was surrounded by beautiful trees covered with fruit. ”

“ Thus Pride, ‘Superbia,’ seated on horseback on a lion’s skin and brandishing a spear, is leading a band of women, who are clad in chain-mail with robes flowing about their feet and carrying spears, against a band of Virtues similarly attired but carrying swords. A most interesting picture is that of Luxury, ‘Luxuria,’ who is seen with fourteen attendant Vices riding in a sumptuous four-wheeled car; Luxury is in front throwing violets. ”

“ For the nun does not disparage marriage, far from it; nor does she inculcate a doctrine of general celibacy. It is not a question with her of giving up a lesser joy for a greater, but simply of the way to remain true to the higher standard, which in accordance with the teaching of her age she identified with a life of chastity. Her position may appear untenable; confusion of thought is a reproach which a later age readily casts on an earlier. But underneath what may seem unreasonable there is the aspiration for self-control. ”

“ Side by side with literary and artistic pursuits nuns were active in the cause of philanthropy. Several women who had the sufferings of their fellows at heart are numbered among the saints; and under the auspices of Hildegard a book was compiled on the uses of natural products in health and disease, which forms a landmark in the history of mediæval medicine.
With the consciousness of the needs of others came too a keener power of self-realisation. The attention of nuns was turned to the inner life, and here again their productiveness did not fail them. ”

“ On the other hand a recluse ought only to take sparingly that which is necessary for her. Whereof, then, may she make herself liberal? She must live upon alms as frugally as ever she can, and not gather that she may give it away afterwards. She is not a housewife but a Church ancre. If she can spare any fragments to the poor, let her send them quietly out of her dwelling. Sin is oft concealed under the semblance of goodness. And how shall those rich anchoresses who are tillers of the ground, or have fixed rents, do their alms privately to poor neighbours? ”

“ At the beginning of the 13th century, when the increase in religious enthusiasm deepened yearnings for the apprehension of the divine, men in their individual capacities began to seek a personal and closer communion with God. The absorption by things spiritual as contrasted with things material took a new departure. On one side was the learned thinker who, trained in the knowledge of the schools, sought to fathom his own powers and through them the powers of mankind so as to transcend the limits of sensible existence, and who gave a new development to mysticism in its technical sense. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In early Christian times we saw monk and nun promoting intellectual acquirements generally, but the separation of the sexes, and the growing feeling in favour of the stricter confinement of nuns within convent precincts, advocated by a later age in the interests of a stricter morality, more and more cut off the nun from contact with secular learning. In the 12th century we saw Queen Matilda, the pupil of a Wessex house, writing fluent Latin and speaking not only of the Fathers of the Church but quoting from classical writers of whom she evidently knew more than the name. ”

“ The outward conditions of life were such that the woman who joined the convent made her decision once for all. But provided she agreed to forego the claims of family and sex, an honourable independence was secured to her, and she was brought into contact with the highest aims of her age. At a period when monasteries, placed in the remote and uncultivated districts, radiated peace and civilization throughout the neighbourhood, many women devoted themselves to managing settlements which in the standard they attained, vied in excellence with the settlements managed by men. ”

“ From every side workers flocked to the settlements, for Robert opened his arms to all. We are told that ‘men of all conditions came, women arrived, such as were poor as well as those of gentle birth; widows and virgins, aged men and youths, women of loose life as well as those who held aloof from men.’ At first there was a difficulty in providing for the numerous settlers, but their labours brought profit, and gifts in kind poured in from outsiders, a proof that in the eyes of the world the settlements supplied an obvious need. ”

“ The palms that stand erect are those who despised the world with its flowers, and who turned their minds to things divine; and the palms that are bent down are those wretched ones who lie in the earthly dust of their misdeeds. ”