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On the Author of the Ancren Riwle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Hope Emily Allen
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Extract

In a previous paper, “The Origin of the Ancren Riwle,” I showed that a remarkable series of coincidences would seem to prove that the Ancren Riwle was written for the three “puellae” (Emma, Christina, and Gunhilda), to whom the hermitage of Kilburn, together with land and three corrodies, was granted by the abbot and convent of Westminster c. 1134. Their house was described in the foundation charter as “heremitorium de Cuneburna, quod aedificavit Godwynus,” and it was given to the three young women “concessu tamen, atque precatu illius Godwyni heremitae, quatinus eundem locum qui ad ilium pertinet in elemosina pro redemptione animarum totius praedicti conventus fratrum possideant.” The gift was made, not only to the three maidens in question, but “omnibus illis quae inibi eadem sanctitatis vitae norma fruendi causa futurae sunt.” Godwin, who had evidently instigated the establishment, was to oversee it: “Sit ille praescriptus heremita Godwynus, magister loci, illarumque puellarum quamdiu vixerit custos. Et post ejus obitum eligat conventus puellarum seniorem ydoneum, qui earum ecclesiae praesit, abbatis tamen concilio.” Some further information as to the nucleus of Kilburn Priory is given us by Prior Flete of Westminster in the fifteenth century. He writes of Abbot Herebert: “Iste fundavit cellam canonissarum de Kilborn, ubi prius quidam nomine Godwinus heremiticam multo tempore ducebat vitam. . . . statuit tres virgines Deo sacratas, domicellas videlicet camerae Matildis bonae reginae, consortis regis Henrici primi.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1929 , pp. 635 - 680
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 635 PMLA, XXXIII, 474-546 (constantly referred to here as “my article”).

Note 2 in page 635 Ed. Morton, Camden Soc., 1853.

Note 3 in page 635 See Dugdale, Monasticon, London, 1821, III, 422 sq., where the charters here quoted are printed.

Note 4 in page 635 Notes and Documents relating to Westminster Abbey, No. 2, Cambridge, 1909, p. 87-8.

Note 5 in page 636 Mod. Lang. Rev., IX, passim.

Note 6 in page 637 So also at the end the author refers to himself as he “þet maked þeos riwle” (p. 430). For the same “riwle” at the beginning, see p. 2, quoted supra, p. 636. These instances should be remembered in connection with the title of the work. Macaulay (p. 145) calls the “Ancren Wisse” given by the Corpus MS the only title with “original authority.” Morton calls “Ancren Riwle” “the original and proper title” (p.v, n.), but he is translating “Regulae Inclusarum” found in a seventeenth century hand on the Nero MS. Passages like the above may suggest that such a title was original with the author, and perhaps in early days found in English on one of the older copies.

Note 7 in page 639 These quotations will also illustrate a point to be made infra, pp. 673 ff.

Note 8 in page 639 See infra, p. 674 for a discussion giving new evidence for the authenticity of this passage.

Note 9 in page 639 Cf. infra, p. 662.

Note 10 in page 639 Many of the sources used by the author are certainly unacknowledged. For example, I pointed out in my former article (p. 488) that a large section comes from the Carthusian Customs of Prior Guigo (of about 1127), and more lately I have discovered a considerable use of the Morals of St. Gregory (Mod. Lang. Rev., xxiv, 14, n. 2). Probably similar new sources will be constantly turning up. See also my note, Mod. Lang. Rev., xix, 95.

Note 11 in page 640 See Leland, Commentarii, Oxford, 1709, p. 265 for a copy of Godwin's meditations to “Ramilda” at Abingdon (Collectanea, Oxford, 1715, iii. 57). In the Fasti Ecclesiae Sarisberiensis (Salisbury, 1879) the Rev. W. H. Jones cites Godwin the precentor (p. 326) on the strength of the Digby MS and of Leland's mention, and also (p. 335) a “chancellor Godwin” as signing a charter dated at c. 1108 on p. 335 and at “probably not later than c. 1120” on p. 188; another witness is Dean Serlo, who lived till 1147 (p. 308). Mr. H. E. Salter kindly pointed out to me that the Godwin of this charter may be the percenter, since a confusion in the signatures “cant.” and “canc.” is easy. Canon Wordsworth very kindly examined the “Osmund register” in which the entry occurs and wrote me (Sept. 8, 1925) that it is “quite clear” as “‘cañt’ (not ‘cancellario’ as printed). So I have to remove ‘Godwin’ from p. 335 of Jones' Fasti Eccl. Sar.”. Canon Wordsworth at the same time kindly copied for me the inscription on the tomb of the precentor Godwin excavated at Old Sarum, as printed (p. 16) by Sir W. H. St. John Hope in the Report on the Excavations at Old Sarum in 1913 (pp. 24, 8vo) for the Old Sarum Excavation Fund. This inscription, though partly illegible, seems to be clear at the name “Godwinus,” and the lines

“Presbiter Anselmo sacratus Canturiensi

Cantor in ecclesia micuit Seresberiensi“ (south slope).

Godwin's date, therefore, must be early enough to allow of his having been consecrated priest by St. Anselm (1093-1109), “presumedly,” as Canon Wordsworth writes, “after reaching the canonical age, i.e., his 25th birthday”; he conjectures Godwin's birth therefore “cir. 1068-84”. This date would have fitted his being precentor of Salisbury c. 1120, and having written the Ancren Riwle c. 1140—if the fact of his being buried in his cathedral would not seem to make impossible the intervening life as hermit of Kilburn which is the necessary basis for such an hypothesis.

Note 12 in page 641 “Postquam multo tempore et assiduo labore, tum sacra, tum profana Volumina perlustrasset, et in utrisque magnam scientiam fuisset consecutus: post-habitis iis quae inflant, edoctus a Spiritu sancto, sectatus est ea quae aedificant et aemulatus charismata meliora, cum Maria optimam partem elegit, quae numquam ablata est ab eo. In tantum enim coelestium rerum contemplationi se dedidit, ut prae excessu consolationis spiritualis, mente coelum conscendere et quasi contagiis mortalitatis exutus, Angelicis choris interesse nonnumquam videretur” (Catalogus, Paris, 1619, p. 353). A hint for the last sentence here is given by Leland (Commentarii, loc. cit.). Bale and Pits take as Godwin's the well-known piece “De Tribus Habitaculis” (Migne xl, cc. 991 ff.). Perhaps the account here of heaven and hell is the origin of Godwin's reputation for mysticism, but both declare that he wrote other works than those of the Digby MS. Can we have here a conflation of facts from two Godwins?

Note 13 in page 641 Gesta Abbatum, Rolls Series, 1867, I, 97. On “obedientiae” in general in the twelfth century, see my article, PMLA, xxxiii, 491 n. Roger's career and that of his anchoress companion will be discussed below, pp. 647 ff.

Note 14 in page 645 The corresponding alternative classification for men follows—“munuch preost, oÐer clerk, and of þet hode, iwedded mon.”

Note 15 in page 645 Morton sometimes translates “ancrehus” as “nunnery,” and this has of course passed into the popular edition by Cardinal Gasquet.

Note 16 in page 645 See A. M. Cooke, Eng. Hist. Rev., VIII, 667.

Note 17 in page 646 See my “Mystical Lyrics of the Manuel des Pechiez,” Rom. Rev., ix, 189.

Note 18 in page 646 R. M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England, London, 1914, p. 152.

Note 19 in page 646 This was of course written before the publication of my article suggesting the connection with Kilburn and a twelfth century date.

Note 20 in page 646 Op. cit., p. 120. The austerities described in the Riwle in question are discussed in my article, pp. 544-6.

Note 21 in page 647 Miss Clay points out of the hermit in general that “the rigour of his life seems actually to have preserved his health and promoted longevity” (p. 126).

Note 22 in page 648 Nova Legenda Anglie, Oxford, 1901.

Note 23 in page 649 We are explicitly told that the hermit Roger never saw the face of Christina (Gesta, p. 98), but no such statement is made about Abbot Geoffrey.

Note 24 in page 649 Gesta Abbot. I, 73.

Note 25 in page 651 Dr. Joseph Hall cites similar admonitions from the Gilbertine Rule and the rule of St. Aelred (Selections from Early Middle English, Oxford, 1920, Pt. II, p. 396). Both, I believe, are nearly contemporary with the Riwle.

* I.e. a handmaid of Christina, who is the subject of the preceding sentences, as I am kindly informed by Miss Jessie Tatlock of Mt. Holyoke College.

Note 26 in page 652 This subject is certainly taken up ff. 157v-158, but the only legible incident of the kind concerns a woman who was cured by drinking holy water.

Note 27 in page 652 Cf., p. 148. In this he is followed by the Dublin Rule for anchorites, to be discussed below, pp. 664 ff.

Note 28 in page 653 “Recent Research upon the Ancren Riwle” (Rev. of Eng. Studies, I, 17) At the same time he mentions that in the quotation the title “saint” is found in the original version in all three MSS,“ and that ”Aelred was not canonized till 1191“ (n.). But Mr. G. G. Coulton shows that ”canonization of saints was not formally reserved to the Holy See until 1170 a.d.“ (Mediæval Garner, London, 1910, p. 31, n.). Even later popular canonization went on (ibid., pp. 52 ff., 305, 320, 534). A notable example in the 14th century is Richard Rolle, who is frequently referred to as ”saint,“ though never canonized (see my Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Monog. Ser. MLAA, III, pp. 54, 133, 205, 214, 216, 218, etc.). Professor Chambers in the same article shows that the ”Sentences of St. Bernard“ cited in the Riwle are really ”a book compiled from the sayings of St. Bernard by his secretary and biographer, Geoffrey of Auxerre,“ which is to be dated ”between the years 1153 and 1179“ (R.E.S., 1, pp. 19-20). This interesting discovery Professor Chambers believes to make a serious obstacle to the date for the Riwle suggested by me. But how can he be sure that the ”sayings of St. Bernard“ found both in the Riwle and the work of Geoffrey did not reach the former by the agency of some other reporter of St. Bernard's preaching? The work of Geoffrey in question is admittedly not an original work, and the material included may easily have reached such a center as Westminster by other first hand sources. Moreover, Geoffrey himself may have reported it viva voce (for all we know) to Gilbert the Universal, bishop of London, who was master of the schools at Auxerre c.1120 before coming to London (see my article, p. 474, n.). He was therefore possibly known to Geoffrey (born at Auxerre between 1115 and 1120: v. Cath. Encyl.). Gilbert showed a wonderful magnanimity in relinquishing power over Kilburn at its foundation, and perhaps he was personally known to the inmates. St. Bernard writes to him with praise (Ep.24).

Note 29 in page 654 Ailred of Rievaulx and His Biographer Walter Daniel, Manchester (reprinted from The Bulletin of the Johns Rylands Library, VI, Nos. 3 and 4, July, 1921—January, 1922), p. 99, n.

Note 30 in page 654 Eng. Stud., vn, 305-44.

Note 31 in page 654 PL, xxxii, 1451 ff. This is very bad, and often corrected by Horstmann by the aid of the English. The passages missing in the Latin (the “meditation on the present”) are distinctly included in the reference which St. Aelred has given in the epilogue to the “three-fold meditation.” It is therefore almost certain to be genuine. The “meditation on the past” also included is the meditation sometimes ascribed to St. Anselm, though Dom Wilmart (Meditations et Prières de St. Anselme, Collection Pax, Paris and Maredsous, 1923, p. xv) assigns it to St. Aelred. When the whole work is seen complete, as in the Cott. MS, it is obvious that it was inserted in its place (if not composed) by St. Aelred.

Note 32 in page 655 The heading is: “Incipit liber uenerabilis aelredi abbatis rieuallis de institutis inclusarum.”

Note 33 in page 655 Added by a later hand.

Note 34 in page 656 MS adds “aū.”

Note 35 in page 658 In the parallel passage of the Riwle (supra, p. 656) the “sickness” referred to which will keep from sin is not explicitly attached to over abstinence, as in St. Aelred's work. What the author of the Riwle in general thinks of sickness self-induced may be gathered from the following: “Sicnesse is a brune, vorte þolien hot. Sicnesse þet God send, auh nout þet sum keccheÐ þuruh hire owune dusischipe. Vor moni makeÐ hire sec þuruh hire fol herdischipe, auh þis miscwemeÐ God” (p. 182).

Note 36 in page 658 It should be noted, however, that St. Aelred is perfectly liberal in his directions as to the dress of the anchoress which he concludes: “Hæc, soror karissima, de exterioris hominis conuerscione non pro antiquitatis feruore sed pro huius nostri temporis spatio (edit.; MS tepore) te compellente conscripsi, infirmis temperatum quendam modum uiuendi proponens, forcioribus ad perfectiora progrediendi libertatem relinquens” (f. 13b). The Cistercians made a great point of refusing furs, which are allowed to her. Miss Clay seems certainly to have mistranslated the passage just quoted. She writes: “After giving some details as to dress, he adds: ‘These things, dear sister, I have written at thy request concerning the manner of outward conduct, not on account of zeal for antiquity, but for the shortness of our time here on earth; setting forth a certain form of life adapted for weaker sisters, leaving to the stronger ones to go forward unto fuller perfection‘” (p. 97). She does not realize how St. Aelred's directions at this point fall short of the Cistercian ideal, which was actuated by “antiquitatis fervore,” nor does she appreciate the personal reference to the sister, like St. Aelred then far advanced in age (cf. edit. cc. 1454, 1456). In her translation the antithesis is lost: “shortness of our life here” would have no special effect in moderating extremes of asceticism—whereas “our age” would have. The phrase “te compellente” seems to be specially attached to the reference to modification of ancient ordinances for the sake of the sister's age (so to paraphrase the meaning of the passage).

Note 37 in page 659 The second sentence is of course a proverb; also quoted by Giraldus Cambrensis, Descript. Kamb. Opera, Rolls Series 21, vi, 188.

Note 38 in page 660 On Peter's interest in Marcigny see my article, p. 528 n.

Note 39 in page 661 Migne, PL., clxxxix, 451.

Note 40 in page 661 Migne, PL., cxcv, 202.

Note 41 in page 661 Abbot Peter sketches at length the revenge taken on the indiscreet recluse by the tedium of his life: “Sic furentibus intra mentis arcana variarum rerum affectionibus, cum nihil de cogitatis praeter vacuam cellulam anima teneat . . . . ipsius miserabilis taedii non in Deo, sed in mundo, non in se sed extra se quaerit remedium, pro quo majus incidit detrimentum. Nam quia semel assumptum propositum eremitam deserere pudet, quaeritur occasio frequentis alieni colloquii, ut qui multa de se tacens tormenta patitur, aliorum saltern confabulationibus reveletur. Aperitur arcta reclusionis fenestra, et velut ad divinum oraculum confluunt examina populorum. Dat responsa divinus propheta omnibus. . . . . Exundat ab ore copia verborum, et longi stillicidio silentii de cisterna dissipata prorumpit,” etc. (op. cit., c. 93). We are reminded of the “olde cwene to ueden hire earen,” enjoyed by many anchoresses according to the Riwle (p. 88), and the “anus garrula vel nugigerula mulier” against whom St. Aelred warns his sister (c. 1451). How common was the phenomenon is shown by the use of a proverb on the subject in the Riwle. The three works at this point certainly seem to echo contemporary conditions. We may recall, in connection with Peter's warning, that the St. Alban's chronicler boasts that the abbot took St. Christine as an oracle (supra, p. 649).

Note 42 in page 662 Migne, PL, clxxxix, 99.

Note 43 in page 663 William of Malmesbury, Kings of England, transl. J. A. Giles, Bohn edit., London, 1911, p. 471 f.

Note 44 in page 663 The author of the Riwle shows his moderation even in the interpretation of the simple three-fold vow which he urges. The third part of it is qualified (p. 6): “studestaþeluestnesse” may be abandoned “vor neod one, als strengÐe and deaÐes dred,” etc. But an anchoress at Mantes when William the Conqueror burnt the city “did not think it justifiable to quit her cell even under such an emergency” (William of Malmesbury, op. cit., p. 310). See also the case of Marcigny, threatened by fire, in the De Miraculis of Peter the Venerable (Migne, PL, clxxxix, 889). See the interesting work by Dom Gougaud, Ermites et Reclus, Éditions de la Revue Mabillon, 5 Ligugé (Vienne, France) 1928, p. 109.

Note 45 in page 664 Regulae tres reclusorum et eremitarum Angliae saec. xiii-xiv, Antonianum, Rome (Collegio di S. Antonio), iii (1928), 174. The dates given in the title follow the usual assumption as to the date of the Riwle. Father Oliger later wrote me: “If we certainly knew that the Ancren Riwle was of the twelfth century, it [the Dublin Rule] could even be ascribed to the twelfth century” (see my article, Mod. Lang. Rev., Jan. 1929, p. 7).

Note 46 in page 665 The Cott. MS here adds something, of which in the present state of the volume all that can be read is “monachorum tamen” (f. 52b).

Note 47 in page 665 The Cott. MS adds “in die dominica.”

Note 48 in page 666 Especially the author would seem to indicate, in “London, Oxford, Shrewsbury or Chester.” In Shrewsbury we know that there was a community of anchoresses. In my article, Mod. Lang. Rev., Jan. 1929, p. 10, I point out that “Chester” may be Chester-le-Street (co. Durham) where an anchorite's house, large enough apparently for two persons, still exists. Of course the hermit Godric of Finchale was under the jurisdiction of the prior of Durham, and St. Aelred's father (of a Durham family) spent his last days as a monk in the priory.

Note 49 in page 667 Dico is written above.

Note 50 in page 667 Id est, pauperum Christi written above.

Note 51 in page 668 Dr. Poole (Mediœval Thought and Learning, 2nd edit., London, 1920) dates the birth of John of Salisbury “between 1115 and 1120” (p. 176). John left Salisbury in 1136, by his own statement (being then “adolescens admodum”). Dr. Poole's account of his character may be quoted for its likeness to what might be written of the author of the Ancren Riwle: “It is in this freedom of outlook that John's individual distinction . . lies. There are some things in respect to which nothing would induce him to relax his positiveness. These are the affairs, the interests, of religion. . . . . Yet even this restriction leaves a considerable space for free and irresponsible questioning” (p. 189). At another time, Dr. Poole comments on John: “The spirit of humanism, in fact, which was the distinctive essence of the school of Chartres, he brought into alliance with a totally different spirit derived unmistakably from the mysticism of Hugh of Saint Victor. The union was no doubt exceptional, for the ethical theology of the Victorines was rather calculated to recommend the life of a recluse than to countenance the wide interests and the wide reading of a man like John of Salisbury; yet, as his writings show, it is this ethical principle, far more than any metaphysical or dogmatic system, that ruled his thoughts. . . . . There is no evidence that Hugh, whom John only refers to twice in all his works, was ever actually his teacher; the current may have been communicated as effectively by private association with Hugh or with fellow members of the abbey” (p. 185). From like “private association” influences may have been carried to the author of the Ancren Riwle from St. Bernard, Peter the Venerable, and so on.

Note 52 in page 669 So the women of Kilburn might have been called before they assumed the title “Augustinian,” for I have shown in my former article (p. 490, n. 24) that “canonesses” were sometimes merely women “who could not otherwise be described.”

Note 53 in page 669 It was a cause of quarrel with his monks that Abbot Geoffrey of St. Alban's spent so much money on St. Christina's establishment (later Markyate priory), which, though Benedictine, never became a cell of St. Alban's, and he evidently altogether had no narrow sense of monastic ownership, for he also established holy hermit women at Sopwell, and once in time of famine gave to the poor the proceeds of what was intended to finish the shrine of St. Alban's (Gesta Abbatum, pp. 76, 82, 95). Sopwell Priory was always a cell of St. Alban's and it has been supposed (V.C.H., Herts. iv. 422 ff.) that it was founded to house the women who had been turned out of the abbey (which had been a double establishment).

Note 54 in page 670 The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, 1927, pp. 39-40.

Note 56 in page 670 The review by “F.M.P.” in the Eng. Hist. Rev. (April 1928, p. 288) says that “the slighting reference to the intellectual poverty of the English Benedictine houses in the eleventh and twelfth centuries would have shocked the late Edmund Bishop.”

Note 56 in page 670 Notes and Documents relating to Westminster Abbey, No. 3, Cambridge, 1911, pp. 73-4. The editor, Dr. Robinson, discusses inconclusively whether a fiction is in question, but he notes “realistic touches” and concludes: “If the picture is a fancy one, it is at any rate an evidence of learning and literary skill.”

Note 57 in page 671 EETS, Orig. Ser., 29, pp. 1-189.

Note 58 in page 671 Mod. Lang. Rev., ix, 146.

Note 59 in page 672 “Dialects in Middle English,” in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, VI, 138. See my Additional Note, infra, p. 680.

Note 60 in page 672 The Early London Dialect, Oxford, 1928, p. 23.

Note 61 in page 672 “The Dialect of London in the Thirteenth Century,” Eng. Stud., lxi (1926), 22.

Note 62 in page 674 The author says at this point that each sister has “of one ureond al bet hire is neod, ne þerf þet meiden sechen nouÐer bread, ne suuel, fur þene et his halle” (p. 192). This I believe to refer to the three corrodies granted by the abbot of Westminster to the three inclusae of Kilburn. The text then goes on: “God hit wot, moni oÐer wot Iutel of þisse eise” . . . . and his turn of phrase here recalls the usual style of the author. As I show in my article (p. 482), this whole description is in its entirety found only in the manuscript printed by Morton. A motive for its omission in some copies is found in the fact that the revision of 1230, adapted for twenty anchoresses, had a large influence; in any case, the facts given by the long passage in Morton are corroborated by hints and partial repetition in other copies, and the general accuracy of the passage in question is thereby supported. I pointed out, however, in my former article, that the sentences just quoted, with the reference to the corrodies which they seem to contain, are not echoed in any manuscript. The stylistic connection which they show with the rest of the work, just pointed out, may now furnish evidence confirming their authenticity.

Note 63 in page 674 Rev. Eng. Stud., July, 1928, pp. 334-7.

Note 64 in page 676 The reading of Morton's text, “spetteÐ,” is here rejected for that of the other 13th-century manuscripts.

Note 65 in page 677 This sermon seems more colourless than the rest, and Dr. Hall (Selections from Early Middle English, 1130-1250, ii. 413) calls the dialect older than that of the following sermon. He thinks (ibid., p. 422) that the latter is “in the same style if not by the same author” as homily 33 in the Second Series of homilies edited by Dr. Morris (EETS. Orig. Ser. 53, pp. 208-16). This work is full of imagery; it describes the “lairs of the devil,” i.e., drink, market, etc., in a manner like that of the group described here, to which it may very well belong.

Note 66 in page 679 G. R. Owst, Preaching in Mediœval England, Cambridge, 1926, p. 232.

Note 67 in page 680 The present article, like my first suggesting the connection of the Ancren Riwle with Kilburn, has brought forward parallels with Peter the Venerable, who, I believe (though probably never known personally to the author) must have belonged to the same contemporary school of thought, as it were. An agreement with Abbot Peter on a small detail of the religious life may also be cited. The anchoress is told in the Riwle (p. 136): “VortÐi seiÐ euerich ancre to eueriche preoste, confiteor, on alre erest” (cf. also p. 64, and Macaulay's collation, p. 155). Peter says of a great prelate (earlier monk of Cluny) that he greeted all monks, bishops and clerics with “confiteor Deo” “quod in monachatu pro more didicerat” (ed. Migne, c. 931). In an addition to the A. R. in the Corpus Christi Camb. MS (Macaulay, p. 467) visits of friars are described and the anchoress is told: “ef he is preost seggeÐ ear þen he parti mea culpa. Ich schriue me to godd almihti and to þe.” A more detailed confession is then to follow (cf. Herbert Thurston, Notes on Familiar Prayers, VI, “The Confiteor,” the Month, July, 1914).