Contents
The Translation
This file contains the English translation by C.C. Swinton Bland of , The Autobiography of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, (London: George Routledge: New York: E.P. Dutton, 1925). Readers should note that Bland used as his underlying text the Latin edition of Dom Luc D'Achery of 1651, and ignored a more modern 1907 edition by Georges Bourtin. Bland also made a number of errors, and included virtually no notes. In 1970 John Benton combined a psycho-historical study of Guibert with a worked over version of Bland's translation, and published it as Self and Society in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent (1064-c.1125), (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970: repr. Toronto: University of Toronto Press/Medieval Academy of America, 1984). Recently there has been both a new edition of the text, by Edmond-Rene Labande, and a new English translation by Paul J. Archambault - A monk's confession : the memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, c1996)
This etext is of Bland's original 1925 translation, with a very
few obvious changes, made. It is entirely suitable for classroom
discussion. But for academic reference, students should be sure
to consult Labande's edition as well as Benton's and Archambault's
translations.
Changes made to Bland's text
To Thy Majesty, O God, I acknowledge my endless wanderings from Thy paths, my turning back so oft to the bosom of Thy eternal mercy, prompted by Thee in spite of all. The wickedness I did in childhood and in youth, I acknowledge, wickedness that yet springs up in ripened age, my ingrained love of crookedness, that in a body sluggish and worn yet lives on. Whenever I call to mind, O Lord, my persistence in unclean things and in what manner Thou didst vouchsafe remorse for the same, I am amazed at the long-suffering of Thy compassion beyond all that man may conceive. If repentance and a prayerful mind may not be, but by the entrance of Thy Spirit, how dost Thou so graciously suffer these to creep into the hearts of sinners and grant so much favour to those that turn away from Thee, ay, even to those who provoke Thee to wrath? Thou knowest Great Fatherhood, all too well, how stubbornly we set our hearts against those who incur our anger and how hardly we are appeased towards those that have often given us fierce words or looks.
But Thou art good, ay, goodness itself and the very fount of goodness. And since Thine aid cometh to all in general, shalt Thou not have power also to succour each single being? Why not? When the world lay in ignorance of God, when it was wrapped in darkness and the shadow of death, when, as night went on its course, a universal silence prevailed, by whose merit, by whose cry could Thy Almighty Word be summoned to come forth from Thy royal seat? But since Thou, when all mankind gave no heed to Thee, couldst not even then be turned from pity on them, no wonder that Thou shouldst show Thy compassion on one single sinner, great sinner though he be ! 'Tis not for me to say that by men severally Thy pity is more easily won than by men in general, for in either case there is no halting in Thy willingness, because with Thee than willingness itself there can be nothing more willing. Since Thou art the fountain, and since Thou owest to all what flows forth from Thee, manifestly Thou dost not withhold from any, what belongs to all.
Ever therefore sinning, and between sins, ever, returning to Thee, fleeing from truth and traitor to it, when I turn back to goodness, shall goodness destroy itself and, overcome by manifold offences, shall it then become estranged? Is it not said of Thee that in Thy wrath Thou will not withhold Thy mercy? The same psalmist sings that this mercy shall abide both now and for ever. Thou knowest that I do not sin because I see that Thou art merciful, but I fearlessly avow that therefore art Thou called merciful, because Thou dost offer pardon to all who seek for it. I do not abuse Thy mercy whenever I am driven to sin by the necessity of sinning; but impious indeed would be the abuse of it, if, because return to Thee after sin is so easy, sin's waywardness should ever give me joy. I sin, 'tis true; but when reason returns, I repent that I have yielded to the lust of my heart when my soul, with unwilling heaviness, sinks as on a dunghill for its bed.
But between times, after the sorrow each day of recovery from a fall, what was I to do? Is it not far wiser to climb up in Thee, for a time only, to take breath in Thee even for a moment, than to forget all healing and to despair of grace? And what but despair is it of set purpose to wallow in every sort of shame? For when the spirit no longer strives with the flesh, the very substance of the unhappy soul is squandered away on pleasure. It is as one plunged in stormy waters, swallowed up by the abyss and driven over the mouth of the pit to the heaping up of a reprobate mind.
While therefore, Holy God, my wits, recovering from the drunkenness
of my inner being, come back to Thee, although at other times
I go not forward, yet at least meanwhile I turn not away from
knowledge of myself. For how could I catch even a glimpse of Thee,
if my eyes were blind to see myself? Surely, if, as Jeremiah saith,
I am a man that hath seen my affliction, it follows that I should
shrewdly search for those things by which my want may be supplied.
And, contrariwise, if I understand not what is good, how shall
I know evil, much less forswear it? If I know not beauty, I shrink
not from foulness. Since therefore I am doubly resolved to seek
knowledge of Thee through knowledge of myself and enjoying that
not to fail in self-knowledge, it is a worthy act and singularly
for my soul's good that the darkness of my understanding should
be dispersed through these confessions with the searching rays
of Thy 1ight cast ofttimes upon it, by which being lastingly illuminated
it may for ever know itself.
The first thing therefore is to acknowledge to Thee the benefits Thou hast conferred on me, that Thy servants, O God, who shall read of them, may exactly weigh the cruelty of my ingratitude. For hadst Thou bestowed on me only what Thou dost allot to other men, wouldst Thou not have exceeded my utmost merit? Besides Thou didst give me many things that redound to Thy praise, but not to mine, and others still of which I must forbear to speak. For if birth, wealth and comeliness of person, to mention no others, are the gifts of Thy hand, O Lord, good men do not value them, except when they are held under the rule of honour by their recipients, or else they are regarded as utterly contemptible by reason of the vice of changefulness that lieth in them. For what have I to do with that which by outward show and unreality gives rise only to lasciviousness or pride? These things are of such neutral nature that according to the quality of the mind, so may they be turned to good or evil and the very pliancy to which they are subject, makes them suspect of inconstancy. Could no other reason be found, this is enough, that no man hath by his own efforts won birth or looks, and of these things in particular all that he hath, was a gift to him.
Other things there be, in the getting of which man's effort may do its part, such as wealth and talents, as Solomon testifies, " When the iron is dull, he must put to the sharpening more strength." Yet even that is confuted by the ready answer that unless the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, be shed on him, and unless Christ shall open to him the doors of learning with the key of knowledge, without doubt every teacher shall spend himself in vain on dull ears. Therefore let every wise man be foolish to claim anything as his own but sin.
But leaving these matters let us return to that with which we began. I said, O Good and Holy One, that I thanked Thee for Thy gifts. First and above all, therefore, I render thanks to Thee for that Thou didst bestow on me a mother fair, yet chaste, modest and most devout. Beautiful, indeed, I should in a worldly and foolish fashion have called her, had I not austerely declared beauty to be but an empty show. Still, as in the utterly poor their fasting is seen to be of compulsion, since they have no choice as to their food, and are therefore the less praiseworthy, whereas the abstinence of rich men hath value according to their abundance; so beauty, the more desirable it is, if it harden itself against the temptations of lust, hath the higher title to praise in every sort. If Sallustius Crispus had not thought beauty devoid of morality worthy to be praised, he would never have said of Aurelia Orestilla, " In whom good men never found aught to praise except her beauty." If he declares her fairness by exception to be praised by the good, but that in all else she was foul, I confidently affirm on Sallust's behalf that this was his meaning; as though he had said that she was deservedly approved by God for nature's gift, although it was a thinly defiled by added impurities. Therefore we praise beauty in an idol which is justly proportioned and although, where faith is concerned, an idol is called a thing of naught by the apostle, nor could anything be imagined more profane, yet the true modelling of its members is not unreasonably commended.
And certainly however fugitive beauty may be, which is liable to change through the instability of the blood, yet within the limits of a shadowy good, it cannot be denied to be good. For if whatever has been eternally established by God, is beautiful, then all that is temporarily fair, is, as it were, the reflection of that eternal beauty, for " The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," says the Apostle. Angels also appearing unto men have always presented countenances of shining beauty. Hence, the wife of Manoah says, " There came a man of God to me having the countenance of an angel." Devils on the contrary, who, according to the First Epistle of Saint Peter are reserved " in a mist of darkness to the day of the great judgment," are wont to appear with looks exceeding foul, save when they deceitfully transfigure themselves into angels of light. And not unjustly so, seeing that they have revolted from the splendour of their noble peers.
Furthermore the bodies of us, the elect, are said to be fashioned like unto the brightness of the body of Christ, so that the vileness that is contracted by accident or natural decay, is amended to the pattern of the Son of God as transfigured on the Mount. If therefore the inner models be fair and good in those who make an outward show, especially when they do not depart from the rule of these, for the same reason that they are beautiful, they are also good. Why, Augustine himself, in his book, if I am not mistaken, " Concerning Christian Doctrine," is known to have said, " He who hath a beautiful body and an ugly soul, is more to be pitied than if he had an ugly body too." If therefore a faulty person is rightly a matter for pity, without any doubt that is a good thing which can be spoiled by an admixture of deformity, or improved by the flawlessness of its beauty.
Thanks to Thee therefore, O God, that Thou didst infuse her beauty
with virtue; for the seriousness of her manner was such as to
make evident her scorn for all vanity; her rare speech and her
tranquil features gave no encouragement to light looks. Thou knowest,
Almighty God, Thou didst put into herin earliest youth the fear
of Thy name and into her heart revolt against the allurements
of the flesh. Take note that hardly anywhere was she to be found
in the company of those who made much of themselves, and as she
was temperate herself, so was she sparing in blame of those who
were not, and when sometimes a scandalous tale was told by strangers
or those of her own household, she would turn away herself and
take no part in it and was as much annoyed by such whisperings
as if she had been slandered in her own person. God of Truth,
Thou knowest it is no private affection, such as one naturally
feels for a mother, that prompts me to speak of these things,
but the real facts are beyond my power to set forth; whereas the
rest of my race are in truth mere animals ignorant of God, or
brutal fighters and murderers, who, unless Thou shouldst with
the greatness of Thy wonted mercy pity them, must surely become
outcast from Thee. But a better opportunity will occur in this
work to speak of her. Let us now turn to my own life.
Of this woman most true, as I hope and believe, I was by Thy favour born, the worst of all that she begat. In two senses was I her last child, for whereas my brothers and sisters have passed away in good hope of salvation, I alone am left in utter despair. Yet whilst I still live in this evil world, there remaineth to me, through her merit next to Jesus and His Mother and the Saints, the hope of salvation that is open to all. Certainly I know, 'tis wrong to disbelieve, that, as in the world she shewed me greater love and brought me up in greater distinction (with a mother's special affection for her lastborn) so surely does she now in the presence of God not forget me. Full was she of God's fire from her youth in Zion, unceasing in her tender care for me sleeping, or awake. And now that she is dead, the wall of her flesh being broken away, I know that in Jerusalem that furnace burns with greater heat than words can express, the more that being filled there with the Spirit of God, she is not ignorant of the miseries in which I am entangled, and, happy though she be, bewails my wanderings, when she sees my feet go astray from the path of goodness marked out by her oftrepeated warnings.
O Father and Lord God, who didst give being to me so bad, in such manner and measure as Thou knowest, from her so truly and really good, Thou didst also grant me hope in her merit, that I should not dare to claim, if I did not now for a little breathe again in Thee after fear of my sins. Likewise Thou didst bring into my wretched heart, perhaps not hope so much as the shadow of hope, in that Thou didst vouchsafe to me birth, and rebirth also, on that day highest of all days and bestbeloved by Christian people. Almost the whole of Good Friday had my mother passed in excessive pain of travail, (in what anguish, too, did she linger, when I wandered from the way and followed slippery paths ! ) when at last the eve of Easter dawned.
Racked, therefore, by pains longendured, and her tortures increasing as her hour drew near, when she thought I had at last in natural course come to the birth, instead I was returned within the womb. By this time my father, friends and kinsfolk were crushed with dismal sorrowing for both of us, for whilst the child was hastening the death of the mother, and she her child's in denying him deliverance, all had reason for compassion. It was a day on which with the exception of the special anniversary service celebrated at its own time the regular offices for the household were not taking place. And so they ask counsel in their need and fly for help to the altar of the Lady Mary, and to her (the only Virgin to bear a child that ever was or would be) this vow was made and in the place of an offering this gift laid upon the Gracious Lady's altar, that should a male child come to the birth, he should be given up to the service of God and of herself in the ministry, but if one of weaker sex, she should be handed over to the corresponding calling. At once was born a weak little being, almost an abortion, and at that timely birth there was rejoicing only for my mother's deliverance, the child being such a miserable object. In that poor mite just born there was such a pitiful meagreness that he had the corpselike look of one born out of due time; so much so that reeds which grow exceedingly slender in those parts-that being the middle of April-seemed thicker in comparison with my little fingers. On that same day, when I was put into the Cleansing water, a certain woman-as I was told in Joke when a boy and young man-tossed me from hand to hand saying, " Can such a child live, think you, whom nature by a mistake has made almost without limbs, giving him something more like a line than a body? "
All these things, my Creator, were signs of the state in which I seem now to live. Could reality in Thy service be found in me, O Lord? No solidity, no firmness in Thee have I shewn. If to the eye, work of mine has appeared good, many a time have crooked motives made it slight. God of supreme love, I have said Thou gavest me hope, or a faint copy of some little hope, out of the promise of that joyous day on which I was born and reborn and offered too to her who is Queen of all next to God. O Lord God, do I not surmise with the reason Thou hast given me, that the day of birth brings nothing better than the day of death to those that live an unprofitable life? If it is true beyond dispute that no merits can be prior to the day we are born, but can be to the day of our death: if it should be our hap not to live in goodness, then, I confess, famous days, whether for birth or death, can do us no good.
For if it is true that He made me, and not I myself, and that I did not fix the day, and had no right to the choice of it, its bestowal on me by God affords me neither hope nor honour, unless my life imitating the holiness of the day, justifies its promise. Then certainly my birthday would be brightened by the joyous character of the season, if the purpose of my life were controlled by virtue sighing for integrity, and the glory of the man's entry into the world would appear a favour granted to his merit, if his spirit continuing in righteousness should glorify his end; Whether I be named Peter or Paul, whether Remigius or Nicolaus, I shall not profit, in the words of the poet, " by the name that has been derived from great Iulus," unless I carefully copy the examples of those whom Providence or chance has made my namesakes, Behold, O God, how the swelling of my heart sinks down again, how but a feather s weight is that which is magnified to a matter for pride !
Also, O Lady of Earth and Heaven, next to Thine only Son, how
happy was the thought of those who placed me under bondage to
thee ! How happy, too, had been mine, if in later years I had
conformed my heart to that vow's resolve ! Behold, I confess that
I was given to be especially Thine own, nor do I deny that sacrilegiously
and knowingly thou wast robbed of me. Did I not rob thee of myself
when I preferred my stinking wilfulness to thy sweet odour? But
although many a time by such a cheat I stole myself away from
thee, yet to thee, and through thee to God the Father and Thine
only Son, did I more fearlessly return, when I contemplated that
offering, and when through my sins a thousand times recurring
I pined again, then out of thy neverfailing compassion security
was born again and I was encouraged to hope by the boon of thy
ancient mercy. But why that word " ancient "? So many
times have I known and daily do know, the constancy of thy mercy
so oft have I escaped from the prison of my fall, when thou didst
set me free, that on those old matters I would fain keep utter
silence, when such a wealth of freedom rules; and so often as
the repetition of sin begets in me a cruel hardening of the heart,
then my resort to thee, as by a natural instinct, softens it again:
and when, after looking on myself and thinking of my woes, I faint
almost in despair, whether I will or no I feel springing up in
my unhappy soul a certainty of recovery in thee. So close to my
thought it lieth that in whatsoever ills I be entangled, thou
canst not, if I dare to say it, be a defaulter in my need, and
on thee in particular shall I lay the due cause of my ruin, if
thou hast no regard for him in his perversity, who was taken straight
from the womb to thee, and if thou givest him no welcome when
he turns to thee again. Since clearly the power is Thine at will
and the authority of the Son is known to overflow to the mother,
from whom may I rather demand salvation than from thee, to whom,
as it were, I cry out, "I am Thine" by right of the
bondage that began at my birth? But of this at another time how
gladly will I reason with thee ! Let me touch upon other matters.
Now after birth I had hardly learnt to cherish my rattle when Thou, Gracious God, henceforth my Father, didst make me an orphan. For when almost eight months had passed, the father of my flesh died: for that great thanks to Thee, who didst cause that man to depart in a Christian state, who would undoubtedly have endangered, had he lived, the provision Thou hadst made for me. For because my person, and a certain natural quickness for one of such tender age, seemed to fit me for worldly pursuits, no one doubted that when the proper time came for beginning my education he would break the vow which he had made for me. O Gracious Disposer, for the well-being of both didst Thou dispose that I should by no means lose instruction in Thy discipline and that he should not break his solemn promise for me.
And so with great care did the widow, truly Thine, bring me up, and at last choose the day of the festival of the Blessed Gregory for putting me to school. She had heard that that servant of Thine, O Lord, had been eminent for his wonderful understanding and had abounded in extraordinary wisdom Therefore she strove with bountiful almsgiving to win the good word of Thy Confessor, that he to whom Thou hadst granted understanding, might procure for me a zeal for the pursuit of knowledge. Put, therefore, to my book, I had learnt the alphabet, but hardly yet to join letters into syllables, when my good mother, eager for my instruction, arranged to pass me on to grammar.
There was a little before that time, and in a measure there is still in my time, such a scarcity of grammarians that in the towns hardly anyone, and in the cities very few, could be found, and those who by good hap could be discovered, had but slight knowledge and could not be compared with the itinerant clerks of these days. And so the man in whose charge my mother decided to put me, had begun to learn grammar late in life and was the more unskilled in the art through having imbibed little of it when young. Yet of such sobriety was he, that what he wanted in letters, he made up for in honesty.
My mother, therefore, through chaplains conducting divine service in her house, approached this teacher, who was in charge of the education of a young cousin of mine, being a kinsman of his parents and boarded in their house. He, taking into consideration the woman's earnest request and favourably impressed by her honourable and virtuous character, although afraid to give offence to those kinsmen of mine, was in doubt whether to come into her house. Whilst thus undecided, he was persuaded by the following vision:
At night when he was sleeping in his room, where I remember, the whole of the teaching of our town was conducted, the figure of a white-headed old man, of very dignified appearance, holding me by the hand, seemed to lead me in by the door of the room. Halting within hearing, whilst the other looked on, he pointed out his bed to me and said, " Go to him, for he will love you very much.'' And when he, loosing my hand, let me go, I ran to the man and, as I kissed him again and again on the face, he awoke and conceived such an affection for me, that putting aside all hesitation, and shaking off all fear of my kinsfolk, on whom not only he, but all that belonged to him, were dependent, he agreed to go to my mother and live in her house.
Now that same boy, whom he had been educating so far, was handsome
and of good birth, but with a dislike for virtuous conduct and
unsteady under all instruction, a liar and a thief, as far as
his age would allow, so that under an ineffective guardianship
he was hardly ever in school, but could be found playing truant
almost every day in the vineyards. But my mother's friendly advances
being made to him at the moment when the man was tired of the
boy's childish folly, and the meaning of the vision fixing still
deeper in his heart what he already desired, he gave up his companionship
of the boy and left the noble family with whom he was living.
This, however, he would not have done with impunity, had not their
respect for my mother, as much as her power, protected him.
Placed under him I was taught with such purity and checked with such honesty in the excesses which are wont to spring up in youth, that I was kept well-guarded from the common wolves and never allowed to leave his company, or to eat anywhere than at home, or to accept gifts from anyone without his leave; in everything I had to shew self-control in word, look or act, so that he seemed to require of me the conduct of a monk rather than a clerk. For whereas others of my age wandered everywhere at will and were unchecked in the indulgence of such inclinations as were natural to their age, I, hedged in with constant restraints, would sit and look on in my clerical chasuble [l] at the troops of players like a beast awaiting sacrifice.
Note: [1] Clericaliter infulatus, -Infula in medieval Latin is used sometimes for a mitre, sometimes for a chasuble. In classical Latin it is the fillet with which the victim for sacrifice was adorned. There is a play on the two meanings of the word. The sense obviously requires the emendation of peritum to periturum.
Even on Sundays and Saints' Days I had to submit to the severity of school exercises; on no day, and hardly at any time, was I allowed to take holiday in fact, in every way and at all times I was driven to study. But he, on the other hand, gave himself up solely to my education, being allowed to have no other pupil.
And whilst he was working me so hard, and anyone looking on might suppose my little mind was being exceedingly sharpened by such driving, the hopes of all were being defeated. For he was utterly unskilled in prose and verse composition. Meantime I was pelted almost every day with a hail of blows and hard words, whilst he was forcing me to learn what he could not teach.
With him in this fruitless struggle I passed nearly six years, but got no reward worth the expenditure of time. Yet otherwise in all that is supposed to count for good training in the behaviour of a gentleman, he spared no effort for my improvement. Most faithfully and lovingly did he steep me in all that was temperate and pure and outwardly refined. But I clearly perceived that at my expense he had no consideration and restraint in urging me on without intermission and at much pains under show of teaching. For by the strain of undue application, the natural powers of grown men, as well as of boys, are blunted and the hotter the fire of their mental activity in unremitting study, the sooner is the strength of their understanding weakened and chilled by excess and its energy turned to sloth.
It is necessary, therefore, to treat the mind with greater moderation whilst it is still burdened with its bodily covering; for if there is stillness in heaven for half an hour, so that even the gift of contemplation cannot be unresting whilst it goes on, so, too, the intellect, when wrestling with some problem, will not without rest maintain what I may call its obstinacy. Hence we believe that when the mind has been fixed exclusively on one subject, we ought to give it relaxation from its intensity, so that after dealing by alternation with different subjects we may return with renewed energy, as after a holiday, to that one with which our minds are most engaged. In short, let wearied nature at times get refreshment by varying its work. Let us remember that God has not made the world without variety, but in day and night, spring and summer, winter and autumn, has delighted us by changes in the seasons. Let everyone, therefore, who has the name of master, see in what manner he may regulate the teaching of boys, and young men too, for we consider that those who have the full rigour of earnestness such as you see in older men, must be treated in the same way.
Now the love that this man had for me was of a savage sort and excessive severity was shewn by him his unjust floggings; and yet the great care with Which he guarded me was evident in his acts. Clearly I did not deserve to be beaten, for if he had had the skill in teaching which he professed, it is certain that I was, for a boy, well able to grasp anything that he taught correctly. But because his elocution was by no means pleasing and what he strove to express was not at all clear to himself, his talk rolled ineffectively on and on in a commonplace, but by no means obvious, circle, which could not be brought to any conclusion, much less understood. For so uninstructed was he that he retained incorrectly what he had, as I have said before, once badly learnt late in life, and if he let anything slip out (incautiously, as it were), he maintained and defended it with blows, regarding all his own opinions as certainly true; but I think he would certainly have been spared such folly . . . for before, says the same teacher, a man's nature has absorbed knowledge, he may win greater praise by keeping silence on that he knows not than by telling of what he knows.
Whilst, then, he took cruel vengeance on me for not knowing what
he knew not himself, he ought certainly to have considered that
it was very wrong to demand from a weak little mind what he had
not put into it. For as the words of madmen can with difficulty,
or not at all, be understood by the sane, so the talk of those
who know not, but say that they know, and pass it on to others,
will be darkened the more by their own explanation. You will find
nothing more difficult than trying to discourse of what you do
not understand, which is bewildering to the teacher, but more
to the pupil, making both look like blockheads. This I say, O
my God, not to put a stigma on such a friend, but for every reader
to understand that we should not attempt to teach as a certainty
every assertion we make, and that we should not involve others
also in the mists of our own conjectures. For it has been my purpose,
in consideration of the poorness of my matter, to give it some
flavour by reasoning about things, that if the one deserves to
be reckoned of little value, the other may be regarded sometimes
as worth while.
Although, therefore, he crushed me by such severity, yet in other ways he made it quite plain that he loved me as well as he did himself. With such watchful care did he devote himself to me, with such foresight did he secure my welfare against the spite of others and teach me on what authority I should be ware of the dissolute manners of some who paid court to me, and so long did he argue with my mother about the elaborate richness of my dress, that he was regarded as exercising the guardianship not of a master, but of a parent, and not over my body only, but my soul, too. As for me, considering the dull sensibility of my age and my littleness, great was the love I conceived for him in response, in spite of the many weals with which he marked my tender skin so that not through fear, as is common in those of my age but through a sort of love deeply implanted in my heart, I obeyed him in utter forgetfulness of his severity. Certainly this same master and my mother, when they saw me paying to both alike due respect, tried by frequent tests to see whether I should dare to prefer one or the other on a definite issue.
At last, without any intention on the part of either, an opportunity occurred for a test which left no room for doubt. Once I had been beaten in school- the school being no other than the dininghall in our house, for he had given up the charge of others to take me alone, my mother having wisely required him to do this for a higher emolument and a better position. When, therefore, at a certain hour in the evening, my studies, such as they were, had come to an end, I went to my mother's knees after a more severe beating than I had deserved. And when she, as she was wont, began to ask me repeatedly whether I had been whipped that day, I, not to appear a telltale, entirely denied it. Then she, whether I liked it or not, threw off the inner garment which they call a vest or shirt and saw my little arms blackened and the skin of my back everywhere puffed up with the cuts from the twigs. And being grieved to the heart by the very savage punishment inflicted on my tender body, troubled, agitated and weeping with sorrow, she said: " You shall never become a clerk, nor any more suffer so much to get learning." At that I, looking at her with what reproach I could, replied: " If I had to die on the spot, I would not give up learning my book and becoming a clerk." Now she had promised that if I wished to become a knight, when I reached the age for it, she would give me the arms and equipment.
But when I had, with a good deal of scorn declined all these offers,
she, Thy servant, O Lord, accepted this rebuff so gladly, and
was made so cheerful by my scorn of her proposal, that she repeated
to my master the reply with which I had opposed her. Then both
rejoiced that I had such an eager longing to fulfil my father's
vow, whilst I, the more quickly to acquire learning, badly as
I was taught, did not shirk the church offices, nay, when the
hour tempted or there was need, I did not prefer even my meals
to such place and occasion. Then indeed it was so: but Thou, O
God, knowest how much I afterwards fell away from that zeal, how
reluctantly t went to divine services, hardly consenting even
when driven to them with blows. Clearly the impulses that constrained
me then, were not religious feelings begotten by thoughtfulness,
but only a child's eagerness. But after the bloom of youth was
gone through conception of wickedness within, rushing on to loss
of shame, then that older zeal entirely faded away. Although for
a brief space, my God, good resolve, nay, the semblance of good
resolve, seemed to shine forth, it was soon fated to die away
overshadowed by the storm clouds of evil imaginations.
At length my mother tried by every means to get me into a church living. Now the first opportunity for placing me was not only badly, but abominably chosen. A brother of mine, a young knight and a citizen of Clermont . . . situated between Compiègne and Beauvais was waiting for the payment of money by the lord of that town, either a gift or a feudal due. And when he deferred payment, probably through want of ready money, by the advice of some of my kinsmen it was suggested to him that he should give me a canonry, called a prebend, in the church of that place, which, contrary to canon law, was in his gift, and that he should then cease to be troubled for the payment of his debt.
There was at that time a fresh attack being made by the Apostolic See on married priests, followed by an outburst of rage against them by the people who were zealous for the clergy, angrily demanding that they should either be deprived of their benefices or should cease to perform their priestly duties. Thereupon a certain nephew of my father, a man conspicuous for his power and sagacity, but so bestial in his debauchery that he had no respect for any woman's conjugal ties, now violently inveighed against the clergy because of this canon, as if exceptional purity of heart drove him to horror of such practices. A layman himself, he refused to be bound by a layman's laws, their very laxity making his abuse of them more shameful The marriage net could not hold him; he never allowed himself to be caught in its noose. Being everywhere in the worst odour through such conduct, but protected by the rank which his worldly power gave him, he was never prevented by the reproach of his own unchastity from thundering persistently against the holy orders.
Having found, therefore, a pretext by which I might profit at the expense of a cloistered priest, he begged the lord of Castrum, with whom, as his intimate friend, he had more than sufficient influence, to summon me and invest me with that canonry on the ground that the cleric was an absentee and utterly unsuitable for the office. For contrary to all ecclesiastical law and right, he was holding the Abbacy by permission of the Bishop, and not being under rule himself, he demanded obedience to rule from those who were. Because, therefore, at that time not only was cohabitation with wives alleged against clergy of the first three orders and those under rule, but also the purchase of ecclesiastical offices that involved the care of souls, was regarded as an offence, not to mention posts concerned with the internal business of the church, both those who took the part of the cleric who had lost his prebend and many as young as myself, began to raise whispers of simony and excommunication, which had recently become more frequent. Now married priest as he was, although he would not be separated from his wife by the suspension of his office, at least he had given up celebrating mass.
Because, therefore, he treated the divine mysteries as of less importance than his own body, he u as rightly caught in that punishment which he thought to escape by the renunciation of the Sacrifice. And so, being stripped of his canonry, because there was no longer anything to restrain him, he now began freely to celebrate mass, whilst keeping his wife. Then a rumour grew that at this service he was daily repeating the excommunication of my mother and her family. My mother, always fearful in religious matters, dreading the punishment of her sins and therefore the giving of offence, thereupon surrendered the prebend which had been wickedly granted, and in the expectation of some cleric's death, bargained with the lord of the castle for another for me. This s out of the fryingpan into the fire. For that something should be given in anticipation of another's death is nothing else than a daily incentive to murder
O Lord my God, thus was I at that time wickedly caught in these
hopes, and in no wise occupied with waiting for Thy gifts which
I had not yet learned to know. This woman, Thy servant, did not
yet understand the hope, the certainty, she ought to have of my
sustenance in Thee and had not learnt what benefits had already
been won for me from Thee. For because for a little, whilst still
in the world, she had thoughts that were of the world, no wonder
that those things which she had chosen to get for herself, she
sought to obtain for me, believing that I too would desire the
things of the world. But when, after perceiving the peril of her
own soul, she burdened the many secret places of her heart with
sorrow for her past life, then, as though she had said, "
That which I am unwilling to do for myself, I will not do for
another," she thought it the worst madness to practise for
others what she scorned for herself, and what she had ceased to
seek for herself, she conceived it a wicked thing to desire for
another, if he should be injured by it. Far different is the practice
of many, whom we see with a show of poverty casting away their
own advantages, but too eager to secure the advancement of others
not only of their own family, which is bad enough, but of those
unconnected with them, which is worse.
But I should like to go a little more deeply, whenever it occurs to me in speaking of my own times, into the condition of religious life and the conversions to it that I have seen; and therefore I have taken this church . . . moreover, some other persons also who happen to be examples of this change for good. There are in writers copious allusions to the prevalence of the monastic way of life in ancient times. For to say nothing of foreign parts, it is known that under certain kings of France in various places with different founders the rules of these institutions were practised; and in some of them there gathered together such an enormous number of men living a pious life that we wonder how the narrow accommodation of these places could hold such crowds. Some of these indeed had special influence through their congestion, several monasteries, in which the zeal of the brotherhood fell away, being noted for their huge size, as at one time was Luxeuil in Gaul, some, too, in Neustria, now called Normandy. But because, as the poet truly says, " To the highest it is denied to stand for long," and, as is still more true, when the world is misled by the reins of iniquity, the love of a holy life grows cold, material prosperity was also, after a time, lost by certain churches: hence when manual labour also was held to be base, there ensued a scarcity of monks.
Therefore in our day in the oldest monasteries, numbers had thinned,
although they had an abundance of wealth given in ancient times
and they were satisfied with small congregations, in which very
few could be found who, through scorn of sin, had rejected the
world, but the churches were rather in the hands of those who
had been placed in them by the piety of their kinsmen early in
life. And these, having little to fear on account of their own
sins, as they imagined they had committed none, therefore lived
within the walls of the convents a life of slackened zeal. They
being allotted managements and outside duties in accordance with
the needs or wishes of the abbots, were eager enough themselves
to accept them but inexperienced in outside freedom from restraint
and had easy opportunities for wasting church monies: these being
accounted for as expended or as free gifts. And although there
was then little care for religion amongst them, yet out of their
very rarity monks became still more scarce.
WHILST this was the state of things and hardly anyone of any consequence joined them, a certain Count of the Castle of Breteuil, which is situated between the borders of Amiens and Beauvais came forth to arouse enthusiasm .in many others. He was in the prime of life, a man of most pleasing refinement, noteworthy for the nobility of his family and the power it exercised in other towns as well as its own, through the remarkable splendour for which it was conspicuous, and widely renowned for its riches. Set for some time on a pinnacle of pride, at last the man came to his senses and turned to reflect on the wretchedness of the life which he had begun to live in the world. The miserable condition of his soul being perceived, and that he was doing nothing else in the world but destroying and being destroyed, polluting and being polluted, he continually discussed from all sides with those of his companions to whom he imparted his ardent desires, what manner of life he should take up. Now his name was Everard and he was wellknown everywhere as amongst the foremost men of France.
At last he carried out into actual practice the convictions of his longcontinued meditations. Without telling those he left behind, but in company with others whom he had induced by his secret persuasions to form a brotherhood and adopt a religious life, he fled to foreign parts to live where his name was utterly unknown. There he employed himself in burning charcoal to pay for his living by hawking it with his friends through the country and the towns. In this way he imagined he had won the greatest riches, the contemplation, that is, of the daughter of the king, allglorious within. Now I will add another example, the one followed by him.
Theobald, now universally called Saint and renowned for the number of churches dedicated to him, was before that a young noble. In the midst of his military training, conceiving a distaste for arms, he fled, barefooted, from his friends, to take up the occupation mentioned above, living in this for some time a life of indigence to which he was unaccustomed. Inspired by his example, I say, Everard had resolved to support himself in the same humble occupation.
But because there are no good things, that do not at times give occasion to some wickedness, when he was one day in a village engaged on some business or other, behold there stood before him a man in a scarlet cloak and silken hose [l] that had the soles cut away in a damnable fashion, with hair effeminately parted in front and sweeping the tops of his shoulders looking more like a lover than a traveller. And when he, in his simplicity, asked him who he was, the other. raising his eyebrows with a sidelong look in a bold fashion, refrained from speaking, but he naturally more curious at his hesitation to speak, pressed him for a reply, and in the end the man, as if overcome by his persistency, at last burst out, " I am E:verard of Breteuil, formerly Count, who, as you know, was once a rich man in France, but going into exile, I am now voluntarily doing penance for my sins." So spoke the fine fellow and amazed his questioner at this sudden assumption of the personality that he claimed for his own. Wondering, therefore, at the impudence of so incredible a rascal, and scorning all further talk with his own shadow, as one might call him, he told the tale to his friends, saying, " Be it known unto you, my friends, that this scheme of life may be profitable for us, but to very many others it is fatal, because by what you have heard from my lips you may guess what happens in many other cases. If, therefore, we wish wholly to please God, we ought to avoid what is a stumbling block to others and even offers an opportunity for false pretence. Let us therefore go to some permanent abode, where, abandoning the name of exile endured for God's sake, we may deprive anyone of the temptation to personate us. After this declaration they changed their plans, setting out for Marmonstier, and there taking the habit of the holy order, they served God continually.
Note [1] Tibialibus sericis pedulum abscissiorne damnatis.-Guibert's rhetoric is sometimes hard to construe exactly, even where there is no confusion of text. Clerical disciplinarians fulminate all through the Middle Ages against what they look upon as immoral novelties of costume.
We have been told that this Theobald, whilst in the world, was in his love for fine clothing unsurpassed by those richer than himself and he was of such passionate character that it was no easy matter for anyone even to accost him. But afterwards, when he had become a monk, we have seen him shew such contempt for his person, that the meanness of his apparel, the humility of his looks and the emaciation of his limbs would have proclaimed him, not a Count, but a country boor. And when he was sent through cities and towns on the Abbot's business, he could never be induced of his own accord to endure even once to set foot in the castles which he had relinquished. What I have related above, he told me himself, since he had a great regard for me when I was quite young, admitted me amongst his bloodrelations, and gave me very special tokens of his love and respect.
He had a very courtly habit of getting anyone whom he knew to
be an eminent scholar, to write something in prose or verse for
his amusement in a little book which he often carried about with
him for the purpose; so that while collecting the maxims of all
who had fame in particular studies, he might from these weigh
their several opinions. And although he had no capacity for such
things himself, yet he would undoubtedly soon apprehend from the
opinion of those to whom he showed his notes, who had expressed
himself most correctly. Enough now has been said of a man once
a noble and far more noble in the good end he made. He, I say,
amongst men of our time, shone most in the brilliant example of
his conversion.
BUT he who made Paul out of Stephen's prayer, spread this example with happier and wider results through another more powerful person. For Simon, the son of Count Ralph, enriched the religion of our time by tile renown of a sudden conversion. How famous was the power of this Ralph throughout France, the cities which he attacked, the towns which he took and held with wonderful skill, many can testify who survived him and have remembered his deeds. How great he was, may also be gathered from the one fact that he married the mother of King Philip after the death of her husband.
Now the young Simon, on the death of his father, succeeded him as Count, but for a short time only. For the story goes that the following was the cause of his late conversion. His father's remains had been buried in a certain town which had become his by usurpation rather than by inheritance. The son, haring this might injure his father's soul, proposed to transfer them to the town which was his by right; when he was disinterred previous to being taken away and was seen naked by the son, he, looking on the wasted body of him who had been his powerful and daring father, fell to meditation on his wretched state. And then he began to despise all the loftiness and the glory that smiled upon himself. And so having conceived this desire, at last with fiery eagerness he gave birth to it, and flying from his country and his friends, passed over the borders of France into Burgundy to the holy Eugendus in the district of Jura.
I have been told that he had been betrothed to a young girl of high rank, who, hearing that her lover had renounced herself and the world, and not enduring to be considered inferior to him, joined the virgin bands that serve God, determined to remain a virgin herself.
Some time after he had become a monk, he returned to France and
the purity of his conversation, with the humility of spirit evident
in his looks, inspired so many men and women of consequence that
dense crowds of both sexes gathered to escort him on his way,
and everywhere numbers were incited by the example of his fame
to a similar resolve, since a great swarm of men of knightly rank
was won over by this man's zeal.
BUT because it was fitting that one of the learned should draw after him a crowd of men in holy orders with the same desire, not long ago there was a certain Brun in the city of Rheims, a man of culture in the liberal arts, a teacher of the higher science, who is supposed to have begotten his first impulse to a new life from the following occasion. After the death of the renowned Archbishop Gervase, one Manasseh thrust himself by simony into the rule of that city. He was of noble birth, but had none at all of that tranquillity of temper which is most becoming to a gentleman; such pride had he conceived from the novelty of his position, that he seemed to be aiming at the imperial pomp of foreign nations, and even the excesses of such pomp. " Of foreign nations," I said, because in the French kings there has always been seen a strong tendency to moderation, so that, although they may not have known the saying of the wise Solomon, yet they carried it out in practice. " They have made thee a Prince," says he; " Be not uplifted, but be as one of them." Now as he paid much attention to the military class and neglected the clergy, he is reported to have said on one occasion, " The Archbishopric of Rheims would be a good thing, if one had not to sing mass because of it."
When, therefore, all good men were horrified at the at wickedness and senseless conduct of this Archbishop, Brun, the bestreputed man at that time in the churches of Gaul, with certain other noble clerks of Rheims, left the city through hatred of the ill-famed Archbishop Afterwards when he was more than once anathematised by Hugh of Die, the Archbishop of Lyons and papal legate, and when with his band of soldiers he endeavoured to squander the treasures of the church, the nobles, clergy and citizens drove him from his chair, which he had so evilly occupied. Sent into perpetual exile, after joining the Emperor Henry at that time an excommunicated man, and being himself excommunicated, he wandered about here and there, and in the end died outside the Church.
Worthy of mention is something which befell in the city under his wicked rule. Amongst the church furniture which he had shared out with the soldiers, who had been the tools of his tyranny, was a golden cup of considerable value for two reasons, because it was one of great size and in it had been melted, as was said, some tiny portions of the gold offered by the Magi to the Lord. When, therefore, he was for distributing the cup, after it had been cut up into pieces with pincers, amongst those to whom he had given it, and no one was inclined to touch so sacred an object, at last a wicked knight, who was as bad as the giver, dared to lift it and even to grasp it with shameless contempt for the grandeur of the Sacrament. Thereupon turning mad, he never spent the price of his untoward presumption, but forthwith paid the penalty of his rash greed.
But Brun, having left the city, determined also to renounce the world, and shrinking from observation by his friends, went on to the territory of Grenoble. There, on a high and dreadful cliff, approached by a path very rarely used, under which there is a deep gorge in a precipitous valley, he chose to dwell and drew up the rules of that order by which his followers live to this day.
And the church there is not far from the foot of the mountain, in a little fold of its sloping side, and in it are thirteen monks having a cloister quite suitable for common use, but not living together in cloister fashion like other orders.
For they all have their own separate cells round the cloister in which they work, sleep and eat. On Sunday they get their food from the cellarer, that is bread and beans, the latter, their only kind of relish, being cooked by each in his cell. Water they have both for drinking and other purposes from a conduit, which traverses all their cells and flows into each through certain holes in the party walls. They have fish and cheese on Sundays and the chief festivals; by fish I mean not what they buy, but what they get by the charity of any good people.
Gold, silver, ornaments for the church they get from no one, having none in the place but a silver cup. Moreover, they do not go into the church at the usual hours, as we do, yet at fixed times. Mass, if I am not mistaken, they hear on Sundays and the usual holy days. They hardly ever speak in any place, for when it is necessary to ask for anything, they do so by signs. Their wine, when they drink it, is so diluted that it has no strength and scarcely any taste, being very little better than ordinary water. Their dress is a hair shirt and few other clothes. They are governed by a Prior, the Bishop of Grenoble, a strict monk, discharging the office of Abbot and Controller. Although they submit to every kind of privation, they accumulate a very rich library. The less their store of worldly goods, the more do they toil laboriously for that meat which does not perish, but endures
So carefully, I say, do they guard their poverty, that this very year the Count of Nevers, a most pious and powerful man, after a visit prompted by his devoutness and their spreading reputation, in which he earnestly warned them against worldly greed, returned home, and then, remembering their poverty, whilst forgetting his own admonitions, he sent them some silver vessels, that is, cups and salvers of great value. But he found them by no means forgetful of what he had said; for as soon as he had made known to them his intentions, they gave him back his own words exactly repeated. " We," said they, " have chosen to keep no money given to us from outside either for our expenses or for church furniture. And if it is spent on neither of these objects, to what end should we accept it? "
And so, ashamed of his offering, which gave the lie to his advice, the Count pretended not to see their rebuff and sent instead a large quantity of ox hides and parchment, which he found out would certainly be needed by them.
Now that place is called Chartreux, and in it the soil is very little cultivated by them for corn. But with the fleeces of their sheep, bred by them in great numbers, they are accustomed to buy the produce they need. Moreover at the foot of that mountain there are dwellings sheltering faithful laymen, more than twenty in number, who live under their careful rule. These are so filled with zeal for the life of meditation which they have adopted, that they never give it up or grow lukewarm, however long their arduous mode of living may last.
Leaving this place on some occasion or other, this wonderful Brun, after impressing on them by word and deed the principles of which we have spoken, departed either to Apulia or Calabria and there instituted a similar manner of living. There dwelling in great humility and setting in every way an example of piety that shone all round, he was sought out by the Apostolic See for the honour of a bishopric, but, when taken for it, fled. Fearing the world and the loss of that enjoyment of God already savoured by him, in putting from him such an honour, he refused not the spiritual office, but the worldly rank.
These persons, I say, sowed the first seeds of the monastic life. Forthwith flocks of adherents, men and women, people of all ranks gathered to join them. What shall I say of their ages? When little children of ten and eleven thought as old men and mortified their flesh beyond the endurance of such tender years? In those conversions there were the same results as in the martyrs of old time, a more lively faith found in weak and tender bodies than in those who had the vigour of maturity and the power of knowledge.
At a time, therefore, when nowhere but in the oldest monasteries was there room for many of the monks, new structures were begun everywhere, and as they flocked in from all sides, great store of provision was used. And when the means did not exist for building on a large scale, they arranged for the food and shelter of the monks by twos or fours or as many as could be supported. Consequently in manors and towns, cities and garrisons, and even in the very woods and fields, there suddenly appeared swarms of monks spreading in every direction and busily engaged, and places in which had been lairs of wild beasts and caves of robbers became known as sites of holy name and saintly habitations.
Therefore, with so many examples around them, the nobles became eager to submit to voluntary poverty, and, scorning their possessions, to give them up to the convents which they entered; and ever in a pious kind of hunting they strove to capture others to do the same. Moreover, the noble wives of well-known men forsook marriage, and putting from their pious hearts the love of children, bestowed therein their wealth, charging their support upon the churches. But those men or women who could not wholly surrender their property, supported those who had done so, by many a gift from their substance, surrounding churches and altars with abundant and welcome offerings and by such services striving, so far as they might, out of their wealth to equal that manner of living, which they were not able to copy by exact imitation.
And so it came to pass that at this time the convents made great
progress through the multitude of gifts and givers, and still
more by the wisdom of those who came to this resolve, and of those
who aided the inmates of the churches by caring for them in every
way; whereas now through the growing laxity of these times, each
day there seems to be a falling away from the flourishing state
of that age. For now, sorrowfully be it said, those gifts which
their parents made to holy places moved with love for such things,
the sons now withdraw entirely, or are for ever demanding fines
for their renewal, being utterly degenerate from the goodwill
of their sires.
After these reasonings at length I return to Thee, my God, to speak of the conversion of that good woman, my mother. She, when hardly of marriageable age, was given to my father, a mere youth, by provision of my grandfather. Though her face shewed much intelligence and a natural and becoming gravity was to be seen in the nobility of her features, yet at the very beginning of her childhood she conceived a fear of God's name. For she had learnt to hate sin not by experience, but by a kind of dread from on high, and (as she often told me herself) this had so flooded her mind with the terror of sudden death, that in later times she grieved because she no longer felt in riper years the same stings of righteous fear, as she had in her rude and ignorant youth.
Now it so happened that at the very beginning of that lawful union conjugal intercourse was made ineffective through the bewitchments of certain persons. For it was said that their marriage drew upon them the envy of a stepmother, who, having nieces of great beauty and nobility, was plotting to entangle one of them with my father. Meeting with no success in her designs, she is said to have used magical arts to prevent entirely the consummation of the marriage. His wife's virginity thus remaining intact for three years, during which he endured his great misfortune in silence, at last, driven to it by his kinsfolk, my father was the first to reveal the facts. Imagine how my kinsmen tried hard in every way to bring about a divorce, and their constant pressure upon my father, young and raw, to become a monk, although at that time there was little talk of such orders. This, however, was not done for his soul's good, but with the purpose of getting possession of his property. But when their suggestion produced no effect,. they began to hound the girl herself, far away as she was from her kinsfolk and harassed by the violence of strangers, into voluntary flight out of sheer exhaustion under their insults, and without waiting for divorce. Meanwhile she endured all this, bearing with calmness the abuse that was aimed at her, and, if out of this rose any strife, pretending ignorance of it. Besides certain rich men perceiving that she was not in fact a wife, began to assail the heart of the young girl; but Thou, O Lord, the builder of inward chastity, didst inspire her with purity stronger than her nature or her youth; Thy grace it was that saved her from burning, though set in the midst of flames, Thy doing that her weak soul was not hurt by the poison of evil talk, and that when enticements from without were added to those impulses common to our human nature, like oil poured upon the flames, yet the young maiden's heart was always under her control and never won from her by any allurements. Are not such things Thy doing, Thine alone, O Lord, who, when she was in the heat of youth and continually engaged in wifely duties, yet for seven whole years didst keep her in such continency that, in the words of a certain wise man, " even report dared not speak lies about her "?
O God, Thou knowest how hard, how almost impossible it would be for women of the present time to keep such chastity as this; whereas there was in those days such modesty, that hardly ever was the good name of a married woman smirched by ill report Ah ! how wretchedly have modesty and honour in the state of maidenhood declined from those times to these, and both the reality and the show of a mother's guardianship shrunk to naught ! Therefore coarse mirth is all that may be noted in their manners and naught but jesting heard, with sly winks and ceaseless chatter. Wantonness shews in their gait, only silliness in their behaviour. So much does the extravagance of their dress depart from the old simplicity that in the enlargement of their sleeves, the straitness of their skirts, the distortion of their shoes of Cordovan leather with their curling toes, they seem to proclaim that everywhere shame is a castaway A lack of lovers to admire her is a woman's crown of woe. On her crowds of thronging suitors rests her claim to nobility and courtly pride. There was of old time, I call God to witness, greater modesty in married men, who would have blushed to be seen in the company of such women, than there is now in married women; and men by such shameful conduct are emboldened in their amours abroad and driven to haunt the marketplace and the public street.
To what end all this, Lord God, but that no one blushes for his own levity and licentiousness, because he knows that all are tarred with the same brush, and seeing himself in the same case as all others, why, prithee, should he be ashamed of pursuits in which he knows all others engage? But why do I say " ashamed " when such men only feel shame if they are not conspicuous in their example of lustfulness. nor is a man's private boastfulness about the number of his loves or his choice of the beauty which he prefers, any reproach to him, nor is he scorned for vaunting his love affairs. Rather does his part in furthering the general corruption meet with the approval of all. Listen to the cheers when, with the inherent looseness of his unbridled passions, that deserve the doom of eternal silence, he shamelessly bruits abroad what ought to have been hidden in shame, what should have burdened his soul with the guilt of ruined chastity and plunged him in the depths of despair. In this and in like manner is this age corrupt and corrupting, bespattering men with its evil imaginations, whilst the filth thereof, spreading to others, goes on increasing without end.
Holy God, scarcely any such thing was heard of in the time when Thine handmaid was thus living; nay, shameful things were hidden under the cloak of sacred modesty and things of honour had their crown. In these seven years, O Lord, that virginity that Thou didst in wondrous fashion prolong in her, was in agony under countless wrongs, as frequently they threatened to dissolve her marriage with my father and give her to another husband or to send her away to the strange houses of my distant kin. She did indeed under such churlishness suffer bitterly (at times), but yet against the enticements of her own flesh and the temptations of all others, she strove with wonderful self-control through Thy goodness, O God.
I do not say, gracious Lord, by what virtue she did this, but that the virtue was Thine alone. For how could that be virtue that came of no conflict between body and spirit, no straining after God, but from mere concern for outward honour and avoidance of illfame. No doubt shamefacedness has its use, if for naught else, to resist the approach of sin. Useful before sin it may be, yet when sin is done, 'tis only blameworthy. For in that it prostrates the soul with holy shame, holding it back from the sinful deed, for the time it avails, until the fear of God brings aid, seasoning with holy gall shame's lack of savour and making that which was profitable for time that is in the world, to have its use not for a moment but eternally. Such shamefacedness, lauded of men yet is the more deadly through its obstinate resistance after sinning to the healing of holy confession. The passionate desire of my mother, Thy servant, O Lord God, was to do nothing to hurt her worldly honour, yet in the words of Thy Gregory, which she had never read or heard read, she remained not in that desire, for afterwards she surrendered all desire into Thy sole keeping. Therefore was it good for her at that time to be subject to worldly shame.
When therefore that bewitchment by which the bond of natural and lawful union was broken, had lasted seven years and more, it is easy enough to believe that, as by juggling, the faculty of sight may be deceived, so that out of nothing something may be produced by conjurors, and out of certain things others, so reproductive power and effort may be broken up by much less art; and indeed it is now a common practice understood even by ignorant people. When, therefore, that bewitchment was brought to naught with the aid of a certain old woman, my mother submitted to the duties of a wife as faithfully as she had kept her virginity when assailed by so many reproaches. Happy as she was in all else, she laid herself open to the chance, if not the certainty, of endless misery when she, whose goodness was ever growing, begat a son never else than wicked, worse sinner than myself. Yet Thou knowest, Almighty One, with what purity and holiness in obedience to Thee was my upbringing, what care of nurses in infancy, of masters and teachers in boyhood, she gave me, with no lack even of fine clothes for my little body, putting me on an honourable equality sons of princes and nobles. And not only in mother, O Lord, didst Thou put this love for me, but didst inspire with it other far richer persons, so that rather through the affection they had for me than under the obligations of kinship, they lavished on me careful tending and nurture.
O God, Thou knowest what warnings, what prayers she daily poured
into my ears not to listen to corrupting words from anyone. She
taught me, as often as she had leisure from household cares, how
and for what I should pray to Thee. Thou alone knowest with what
pains she travailed that the sound beginning of a happy and honourable
childhood guarded by Thee, might not be ruined by an unsound heart.
Thou didst make it her desire that I should without ceasing burn
with zeal for Thee, that Thou to my outward comeliness might above
all add goodness and wisdom. And Gracious God, Gracious Lord,
if then she had foreknown under what heaps of filth I should blot
out the fair surface of Thy gifts bestowed by Thee at her prayer,
what would she have said? What would she have done? How hopeless
the lamentations she would have given forth ! How quickly would
she have come to torture of heart ! Thanks to Thee, sweet overruling
Disposer, " Who didst mould our hearts like wax." Verily
had her clear vision pierced the secret places of my heart, unworthy
of her pure gaze, I wonder if she would not there and then have
died.
THIS being said by way of anticipation, let us return to what we left farther back. This woman, I say, whilst serving the world, had, I have been told, such fear of God's name that in her obedience to the Church, in almsgiving, in her offerings for masses, her conduct was such as to win respect from all Full belief in my story will, I know, be made difficult by a natural suspicion that the partially of a son has exaggerated her virtues. If to praise one's mother be thought a cautious disingenuous way of glorifying one's self, I dare to call Thee to witness, O God, who knowest her soul, in which Thou didst dwell, that I have truthfully asserted her surpassing merit. And indeed, since it is clearer than daylight that my life strayed from the paths of the good, that my pursuits were ever a shame to the wise, of what avail to me will be the greatness of my forebears when all their grandeur is abridged by their wretched offspring? And I who by no control of will or act make their great qualities live again, am riding posthaste to infamy if I claim their glory for myself.
Now whilst the young girl was still living a married life, something befell which gave no slight impulse to the amendment of her life. The French in the time of King Henry were fighting with much bitterness against the Normans and their Count William, who afterwards conquered England and Scotland, and in that clash of the two nations it was my father's fate to be taken prisoner. It was the custom of this Count never to hold his prisoners to ransom, but to condemn them to lifelong captivity. The news being brought to his wife before I was born, though not much before, and therefore I do not call her mother, she abstained from food and drink, and sleep was still more impossible through her despairing anxiety, the cause of this being not the amount of his ransom, but the impossibility of his release.
In the dead of that night, as, full of deep anxiety, she lay in her bed, since it is the habit of the Devil to invade souls weakened with grief, suddenly whilst she lay awake, the Enemy himself rushed upon her ,and by the burden of his oppression almost crushed the life out of her. As she choked in agony of Spirit and lost all use of her limbs, being unable to make a single sound, having only her reason free, in utter silence she awaited aid from God alone. Then behold, from the head of her bed, a spirit, no doubt a good one, began to cry out in loud and kindly tones, " Holy Mary, help her." And after some words which she fully understood, keeping her senses, although so grievously harassed, he broke out into angry rebuke. Thereupon he who lay upon her, rose up, and the other met and seized him and in the strength of God, with a great crash, overthrew him, so that the room shook heavily with the shock of it and the maidservants, fast asleep, were rudely awakened. Now when he had thus been driven out by the power of God, that good spirit, who had called upon Mary and routed the Devil, turning to her whom he had rescued, said, " Take care to be a godly woman." But the attendants, alarmed by the sudden uproar, rose to see how their mistress did and found her halfdead, with bloodless face and all the strength of her body beaten down; they questioned her about the noise and thereupon were told the causes of it, and hardly were they able by their presence and talk and by the lighting of a lamp to revive her.
Those last words of her deliverer - nay, Thy words, Lord God, through the mouth of Thy messenger - were stored up for ever in my mother's memory and kept to be carried out with much effect, when the opportunity came. Now after the death of my father, although the beauty of her face and form remained undimmed, and I, scarce half a year old, was enough cause for anxiety, she resolved to continue in her widowhood. With what spirit she ruled herself, what an example of modesty she set, may be gathered from the following instance. When my kinsmen, eager for my father's privileges and possessions, strove to take them by the exclusion of my mothers they fixed a day for advancing their claims. The day came and the nobles were in council prepared to act in despite of all justice. My mother, being assured of their greedy intentions, had retired to the church and was repeating her regular prayers before the image of the crucified Lord. One of my father's kinsmen, having the same views as the others and instructed by them, came to request her presence to hear their decision, as they were waiting for her. Whereupon she said, " I will do nothing in the matter but in the presence of my Lord." "Whose lord? " said he. Then, stretching out her hand towards the image of the crucified Lord, she replied, " This is my Lord, this is the advocate through whom I will plead." At that saying the man reddened and, not being very subtle, put on a wry smile to hide his evil intent and went off to tell his friends what he had heard. And they too, being covered with confusion at such an answer, and knowing they had no just occasion against her utter honesty, ceased to trouble her.
Soon one of the chief men of that place and province, a nephew of my father, as greedy as he was powerful, attacked the woman in the following terms: " Since, mistress," said he, " you have sufficient youth and beauty, it is meet that you should marry, that your life in the world may be more pleasant and the children of my uncle should be placed under my care to be trustily brought up by me, his possessions finally coming into my hands, as is right they should." "But," said she, " you know that your uncle was of very noble descent, and since God has taken him away, Hymen shall not repeat his rites over me, unless a marriage with some much greater noble shall offer." Now with craft did the woman speak of getting for husband a greater noble, knowing that could hardly, if at all, come to pass, so that, as he misliked talk of a higher noble, she, who was wholly set against noble and mean alike, might forthwith put an end to all hope of a second marriage. And he setting down to overmuch pride her talk of a greater noble, she rejoined, " Certainly a greater noble, or none at all." He perceiving the resolution with which the lady spoke, desisted from his designs, and never again required of her anything of the kind.
In much fear of God, then, and with like love of all her kin and, most of all, the poor, this woman wisely ruled us and ours and that loyalty which she had given her husband in his lifetime, she kept unbroken and with double constancy to his spirit, with no loosening of the ancient union of their bodies by substitution of other flesh on his departure, almost every day striving to relieve him by the offering of the life-bringing sacrifice. Friendly to all the poor in general, to some in her abounding pity she was generous and bountiful to the full extent of her means. The sting of remembering her sins could not have been sharper if she had been given up to all kinds of wickedness and if she had dreaded the punishment of every ill deed that is done. In plainness of living there was nothing that she could do, for her delicacy and sumptuous rearing did not admit of a meagre diet. In other matters no one knew what selfdenial she practised. With these eyes I have seen and made certain by touch that whereas over all she wore garments of rich material, next to her skin she was covered with the roughest haircloth, which she wore not merely in the daytime, but, what was a great hardship for a delicate body, she even slept in it at night.
The night offices she hardly ever missed, being as regular at the services attended by all God's people in holy seasons; in such fashion that scarcely ever in her house was there rest from the singing of God's praises by her chaplains, who were always busy at their office.
So constantly was her dead husband's name on her lips, that in
prayer, in almsgiving, in the midst of ordinary business, she
continually spoke of him, because he was for ever in her mind.
For with love of whom the heart is full, to his name shapeth the
tongue in speech, whether it will or no.
BUT passing by these matters, in which she shewed her goodness, but not her most admirable qualities, let us proceed with what is left. About twelve years after my father's death, I am told, during which the widow managed house and children under worldly garb, she now made haste to bring to happy birth a resolve with which she had long been in labour. Whilst therefore she still pondered this purpose, discussing it with no one but my master and teacher mentioned before, a certain devilpossessed dependent, have been told, amongst ramblings on other matters, under the devil's influence, shouted out these words " The priests have placed a cross in her loins." Nothing indeed could have been truer, although I did not then understand the meaning of his riddle. For thereafter she submitted not to one but to many crosses. Soon afterwards whilst her intention was still unknown to any one but the person I have mentioned, a sort of steward in her house, who himself a little later followed her in her conversion by renunciation of the world, the following vision was seen by her in a dream, to wit, she seemed to be marrying a man and celebrating her nuptials much to the amazement of her children, friends and kinsfolk. The next day when my mother went into the country for a walk attended by my teacher, who was also her steward, she told him of her vision. My mother was in no need of a skilled interpreter in such matters. One look at my master's face and without speech from him she knew that the vision pointed to the subject of many conversations, even to her longing to be united with God. Hastening on her plans therefore and overcome by the burning zeal within her, she withdrew from all part in the society of the town.
At the time of this withdrawal she stayed at a certain manor belonging to the Bishop Guy by his permission. This Guy was a man of courtly manner and noble birth, in person wellfitted for the office he held. He, after conferring notable benefits on the church of Beauvais, such as laying the first stone of a church for regular canons dedicated to St. Quintin was charged before Hugh, Archbishop of Rheims with simony and other crimes by those who owed their training and advancement to him. Because he did not appear when summoned, judgment went against him by default, and being at Cluny and afraid of the sentence pronounced, he retired into the monastery there. As this man shewed a warm regard for my mother and her family and most of all a special affection for myself, as one who had received the blessing from him at every sacrament but that of the priesthood, when asked by my mother's friends to allow her to live for a while in his own house adjoining the church of that place, he gladly consented. Now this manor, named Chaitaigneray was about two miles distant from our town.
Whilst staying there she resolved to retire to the convent of Fly. Having therefore built a little house near the church through the agency of my master, at last she came forth from the place where she was staying, and knowing that I should be utterly an orphan with no one on whom to depend-for great as was my wealth of kinsfolk and connections, yet there was none to give me the loving care a little child needs at such an age, for with no lack of food and clothing I suffered from the loss of all those precautions for the helplessness of tender years that only a woman can provide-knowing I say, that I should be exposed to such want of care, yet the love and fear of God hardened her heart, but in her journey to this convent having to pass through the town in which I was living, the sight of the castle gave intolerable anguish to her lacerated heart stung with the bitter remembrance of what she had left behind. No wonder indeed if she felt, as it were, the very limbs of her body torn from her, calling herself, no doubt, 'cruel and unnatural mother,' ay, and hearing herself so called, for shutting out from her heart a child so worthy of her love, and leaving me helpless and unprotected, for not only my own people but others too shewed great affection for me. And Thou, Good and Gracious God, didst in Thy sweetness and love harden that heart, the tenderest in all the world, that it might not be tender to her own soul's harm Tenderness then was ruin of herself, had she, neglecting her God, in worldly care for me put me before her own salvation. But her love was strong as death, for the closer her love for Thee, the greater her composure in breaking from those she loved before.
Coming therefore to that convent she found an old woman in the habit of a nun, whom she compelled to live with her, having declared she would submit to her discipline, as she had all the appearance of great piety. " Compelled," I say, because she exerted all her powers of persuasion, when she knew her character, to get her companionship. And so she began gradually to copy the severity of the older woman, to imitate her meagre diet, to choose the plainest food, to give up the soft cushions in her bed, to which she had been accustomed, to sleep in contentment on cornstraw covered with a little linen sheet. And since she still had much beauty and shewed no sign of age, she purposely strove to assume the appearance of age with an old woman's wrinkles and bowed form. Therefore her long flowing locks, which above all things make a woman beautiful, were frequently cut short with the scissors, her dress was black and unpleasing with its excessive width adorned with countless patches, her cloak of natural colour and her shoes pierced with many a hole past mending, since there was one within her whom she tried to please with such mean apparel
Since, therefore, she had learnt the beginnings of goodness, by confession, almost daily renewed, her mind was for ever occupied in searching out her past deeds, what as a maiden of tender years, what in her married life, what as a widow with a wider range of activities she had done or thought or said, ever examining the seat of reason and bringing what she found to the knowledge of a priest and to God through him Then you might have seen the woman praying with such sharp sighs, wearing herself with such anguish of spirit that, as she worshipped, there was scarcely ever a pause in the heartrending sobs that went with her entreaties. The seven penitential psalms she had learnt under that aforesaid old woman, not by sight, but by ear, and day and night did she turn them over in her mind, chewing the cud of their relish, one might say, so that never did that singer, chanting most sweetly, ever cease from sighs and groans in Thy ear, O Lord. But whenever meeting with people from outside disturbed the solitude which she loved for all who were acquainted with her, especially men and women of rank, took pleasure in conversing with her because of her wondrous wit and modesty-on their departure, every untrue, idle or careless word, that was spoken during their talk, begat in her soul indescribable anguish until she reached the customary waters of penitence or confession.
But whatsoever zeal, whatsoever anxiety she shewed in such matters,
she could win for her soul no confidence, no certainty of salvation
to stay her unceasing lamentations, her earnest and tearful questionings
whether she could ever earn pardon for her offences. Thou knowest,
O Lord, and I too am not ignorant, what sins were hers. How small
was their whole sum compared with those of others who neither
sorrow nor sigh. Thou knowest, O Lord, how hereby may be measured
the state of her soul, that never did I see her heart grow cold
in the fear of punishment and in her love for Thee.
Why say more? Whilst she, as I have described, was thus divorcing herself from the world, I was left deserted by mother, guide and master For he who had so faithfully trained and taught me, fired by my mother's example, love and counsel, betook himself to the monastery of Fly. And I, now possessed of a baneful liberty, began most immoderately to abuse my power, to laugh at churches, to hate school, to love the company of my young lay cousins devoted to knightly pursuits, and, whilst cursing the clerk's garb, to promise remission of sins, to indulge in sleep in which formerly I was allowed little relaxation, so that by unaccustomed excess of it my body began to waste. Meantime the agitating news of my doings fell on my mother's ears, and surmising from what she heard, my immediate ruin, she was halfdead with fear. For the fine clothing which I had in the church processions, provided by her in the hope that I might be the more eager for the clerk's life, I wore everywhere in wanton pursuits natural at my age, rivalling the boldness of older youths, utterly careless and intemperate
Whilst therefore the looseness, ay, the madness of my behaviour was all the worse, because I had lived before a strict and guarded life, my mother, unable to endure what she heard, had recourse to the Abbot and begged him and the brotherhood that my master might be al lowed to resume my training. The Abbot, brought up by my grandfather and under obligation for benefits received from his house, gave me a ready welcome, when I went to him, and followed up his kind reception with still kinder treatment thereafter. I call Thee to witness, Holy God and Disposer, that from the moment I entered the monastery church and so soon as I saw the monks sitting there, at that sight a longing for the monk's life seized me, which never grew cold, and my spirit had no rest until its desire was fulfilled. And so living with them in the same cloister and thinking on their whole existence and condition, as the flame increases when fanned by the wind, so by contemplation of them my soul yearning to be made like unto them, could not but be on fire. Lastly I was urged by the Abbot of the place by entreaties daily repeated to become a monk there, and although I passionately desired so to do, yet could not my tongue be loosed by the prayer of those who desired me to make such a promise and what would be most difficult now that I am older, to be silent with a full heart, yet boy as I was, that silence I kept without much difficulty.
At length I opened the matter to my mother, and she fearing the instability of boyhood, tried by reasoning to dissuade me from my purpose, which made me not a little sorry I had revealed my intention; and when I also told my master, he opposed it still more. Deeply annoyed at the opposition of both, I determined to turn my mind elsewhere; and so I began to act as if I had never had such a desire. Having put the matter off from the week of Pentecost until Christmas day, and being both eager and anxious to bring the matter to an end, I impatiently threw off my respect for my mother and my fear of my master, and betaking myself to the Abbot, who was eager for this to happen but had failed to draw any promise from me, I cast myself at his feet, begging him earnestly and with tears in such terms as a sinner would use, to be received by him. He gladly granting my prayer provided the necessary habit, as soon as he could, that is, on the next day, and invested me with it, my mother in tears looking on afar off, and ordered that alms should forthwith be offered that day.
Meanwhile my former master, not being able to teach me any longer because of the strict rule of the brotherhood, at least took care to urge me to search diligently those holy books which I was reading, to study those less known by more learned men, to compose short pieces of prose and verse, warning me to apply myself the more closely because less care was being expended by others on my instruction. And, O Lord, True Light, I well remember the inestimable bounty Thou didst then bestow on me. For so soon as I had taken Thy habit at Thy invitation, a cloud seemed to be removed from the face of my understanding and that wherein I had wandered blindly and in error, began to be apprehended by it. Besides I was suddenly inspired with such love of learning that for this above all I yearned and thought the day was lost on which I did not engage in some such work. How often did they think me asleep and resting my little body under the coverlet, when my mind was concentrated on composition, or I was reading under a blanket, fearful of the rebuke of the others.
And Thou, Holy Jesus, knowest with what motive I so acted, chiefly to win glory, that greater honour in this present world might be mine. My very friends wrought certain harm to me, for although they gave me good advice, yet oft they plied me with talk of fame and literary distinction and, through these, the winning of rank and wealth. And so they put into my short sighted mind, hopes worse than the egg of asps, and as I believed that all their promises would quickly come to pass, they only mocked me with the vainest expectations. For, whereas they spoke of things that might befall in the fulness of age I was counting on their certain attainment in youth or early manhood. They forsooth set before me the getting of knowledge, which by Thy gift was daily growing up in me, with the worldly advantages of birth and a handsome person, but they remembered not Thy command that by such steps a man may not climb to Thy altar, for thus is baseness wont to be revealed. For he that climbeth by any other way, is a thief and a robber, which is baseness.
But in these beginnings of mine under Thy inspiration, had its wisdom been of another sort, my mind might have been prepared for temptation; in truth my wisdom at that time was in a manner only foolishness. Childish indeed as were my stirrings then to joy or fear, would that I now so feared Thy judgments, O Lord, so hated my great sins, as then I did those that were little, or scarcely sins at all. I did indeed with much eagerness strive to imitate those whom I saw weeping bitterly for their sins, and whatever came of Thee, was dear to my sight and hearing. And I, who now search the Scriptures to find matter for display and mere words, and even store in my mind the illfamed works of pagan writers to make mere babbling, in those days got from them tears and cause for sorrow, and thought my reading vain, if I found in it no matter for meditation, nothing leading to repentance, so unwisely
But that old Foe, who by ages of experience has learnt exactly how to deal with the varying conditions of heart and age, he, I say, according to the measure of my little mind and body, conceived for me new conflicts. For by presenting to my gaze in sleep many visions of dead men, chiefly those whom I had seen or heard of as slain with swords or by some such death, he so terrified my spirit, when relaxed in sleep, by such sights that but for the watchful protection of that master of mine, I could not be kept in my bed, or from calling out, or even from losing my wits. And although this trouble may seem childish and ridiculous to those who have not felt it, by those who are oppressed by it, it is regarded as a great calamity, so that fear itself, by most men thought foolish, can by no reasoning, no counsel, be held in check, and whereas the sufferer himself values not a straw that which he suffers, the spirit, when once for a brief moment plunged in sleep, cannot by its mastery shake off the horrid sights, nay, his soul deeply disturbed by its terrors, dreads the return of sleep itself. To this emotion crowds or solitude are the same, the company of others being no defence against fear, whilst dwelling alone makes it worse or leaves it as bad as before.
Far different, Lord God, was my condition then from my present state; then certainly I lived in great fear of Thy law and in unbounded loathing of all sin, and eagerly I drank in all that could be said or heard or known from Thee. I know, Heavenly Father, that by such aspirations of the child the devil was savagely enraged, later, alas, to be appeased by the surrender of all my pious fervour. Hence one night, when awake with wretched grief-in winter, I believe-I was lying in my bed, seeming to be safer with a lamp close by that gave a bright light, when suddenly and close by, from above, I thought, there arose a shouting of many voices in the dead of the night, and a voice without words, but full of woe. Thereupon, dizzy with the shock, I was rapt from my senses and fell on sleep, in which I thought I saw a dead man, who, some one cried out, had been killed at the baths. Crying out with the terror of the phantasy, I leapt from my bed, and looking round, as I leapt, I saw the lamp extinguished and in the midst of a cloud of gathering darkness fell on my eyes, a devil in his own shape standing near. At that horrible sight I should have gone almost mad, had not my master, who was usually on guard to control my terrors, adroitly soothed my perturbed and wandering wits.
It was not unknown to me even in the tender years of childhood that the desire for a right mind then burning in my heart, enraged the devil in no small measure to stir up wretchedness in me. Gracious God, what victories, what crown for victories should I have won now, had I stood fast to the end in that struggle ! By many conclusions drawn from tales I have heard, I find that devils are most fiercely embittered against recent converts or those who continually aspire to a godly life. Hence I remember that in the time of Guy, the Bishop of Beauvais aforesaid, there was a certain young knight in his household, for whom the Bishop had a special affection above almost all his retainers. This man repenting with horror of his vices, resolved at all costs to fly from contact with the world. Whilst torn with anxious thought on his strange condition, one night he was sleeping in the Bishop's dormitory and with him were one Ivo, a native, I believe, of St. Quintin and a godfearing man, another a distinguished scholar even more famous for his eloquence, besides a monk of Cluny, who under the Abbot Hugh of blessed memory, filled in that place the office of Prior, with certain others of holy life and good birth, all sleeping there, as well as the Bishop. And one of the nobles of a neighbouring town, a very courtly and discreet man, lay awake whilst the rest slept in the dead of the night. And as his thoughts wandered at will and his eyes roved hither and thither, behold the figure of a tall devil with a small head and a hunched back appeared advancing, who looking at each of the beds in turn proceeded to walk right round the room. And when the great Deceiver came to the bed of the young man, whom I mentioned as being most beloved by the Bishop, he halted and turning his gaze on the sleeper, said: " This fellow with his uneasy mind troubles me more than all the rest who sleep here." Saying that and directing his steps to the door of the reredorter he entered therein.
Now he who was looking on, whilst noticing all this, was oppressed
with such a burden as made speech or movement impossible. But
when the Adversary went out, both faculties returned to him and
in the morning, on relating his vision to the wiser men and enquiring
with them into the condition and disposition of that young man,
he found that his heart was earnestly set on entering a holier
life. If therefore there is joy in heaven over one sinner that
is converted more than over the ninety and nine good men that
need no repentance, without doubt we may fully believe that the
enemies of the human race are vexed with the most bitter hatred
at the rescue of those who change for the better. And just as
I, who began so well, am in my later stages so desperately bad,
so he, after the devil's testimony to him, henceforward gradually
fell away and grew cold, returning to his worldly cares; yet one
may believe how painfully that sudden stirring of our good intentions
must sting the hearts of devils. And no wonder that the Devil
is grieved by the sudden though barren aspirations of any penitent,
when the shallow selfabasement of that wicked king Ahab
turned upon him the regard of God before the regard of men. Hence
the Lord of Elijah, if I am not mistaken, said, " Hast thou
not seen the abasement of Ahab before me? Because therefore he
has been abased because of me, I will not bring evil in his day."
Now with the gradual growth of my little body, as its carnal life began to stir my itching heart with fleshly longings and lusts according to its stature, my mind oft fell to remembering and thinking on what and how great I might have been in the world, in which my imaginings often travelled beyond the truth. These thoughts, Gracious God, Thou didst reveal to Thy servant, my mother. Whatsoever the state, healthy or diseased, to which my unstable heart changed, thereafter there came to her in a vision by Thy will, O God, an image of the same. But whereas dreams are said to follow upon much care, and that is verily true, yet her cares were not aroused by the heat of greed, but were created by a real eagerness for inward holiness. Soon therefore when the troubling vision was impressed on her pious mind, as she was very subtle and clear sighted in the interpretation of such matters, soon, I say, when she had perceived that this trouble was betokened by her dream, she summoned me and in private questioned me how and what I was doing. And since I was in such submission to her that my will was one with hers, I readily confessed all those things which I had heard as in a dream, into which my mind seemed to relax and fall, and after her counsel concerning amendment, I at once gave her my promise with true affection.
O my God, oft did she declare in dark sayings that state in which I now am, and what she believed I had done or must do in that earlier condition, that I now experience every day and see it filling up the secret places of my heart. Nay, even my master himself with the same ever-present anxiety, enlightened by Thee, saw through many kinds of phantoms what was happening at the time and what might come to pass in the future. By God's goodness therefore in alarming, and again in comforting me, adversity and success were foretold, so that whether I would or not, I refrained from secret vice, because by Thy wonderworking so much was revealed to those who loved me; and sometimes I rejoiced in the promise of a better hope.
Now at a time when I was swayed by a spirit of sullenness by reason of the envy which I endured from my superiors and equals, I was eager with the aid of my kin to be transferred to other monasteries. For some of our brotherhood, seeing me once far below them both in age and learning, in ability and understanding, and afterwards perceiving that I equalled them, or, if I may say so, altogether surpassed them through His gift alone who is the key of all knowledge instilling into my heart a hunger for learning, with such rage did their wrathful wickedness blaze forth against me, that, wearied with everlasting disputes and quarrels, I often regretted I had ever seen or known letters. Certainly my work was so much upset by them and so many brawls started, when occasion arose, about those letters by their constant questions, that they seemed to have this single object in view, to make me change my resolve and to embarrass my understanding. But as, when oil is poured on a fire, it bursts into a livelier flame with that which was supposed to put it out, the more that, like an oven, the capacity of my mind was overtaxed in such labours, the better it became, rendered stronger by its own heat. The questions by which they thought to crush me, gave exceeding keenness to my intelligence, and the difficulty of their objections, through much pondering to find answers and the turning over of various books, begat a strengthening of my wits and ability in debate. And so, although I was thus bitterly hated by them, yet Thou knowest, O Lord, how little, if at all, I hated them, and when they could not, as they wished, put any stigma upon me, they everywhere affirmed in disparagement that I was too proud of my little learning.
Amid these annoyances that I took very hardly, although by difficulties of this sort was begotten abundant good, yet my spirit grew weak, languishing under the endless torture of its thoughts. With fearful heart and failing powers of reason I began to consider what profit there was in hardship and eagerly decided to seek retreat whither my carnal weakness prompted me. When therefore I made my proposal that I should leave the place, not so much with the kindly permission of the Abbot, as at the suggestion and demand of my kinsfolk, the assent of my mother also being given in the belief that I was doing this from pious motives (for the place to which I wished to retire, was considered very holy), the following vision appeared to her to witness to the good and evil in me.
She thought she was in the church of that convent, that is, of Fly, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and looking more closely she saw it was naked and desolate, the monks too were not only ragged and covered with wrappers huge beyond belief, but all alike were shortened to a cubit in height like those called dwarfs. But because, where the treasure is, there is the heart also, and where the gaze is turned, there is love, after fixing a long look on me, she saw that I stood no higher than the rest and was covered with no better apparel. And as she was sorrowful at my plight and that of the church, behold a woman of surpassing beauty and majesty advanced through the midst of the church right up to the altar, followed by one like a young girl and having all the appearance of a respectful attendant upon her. Being very curious therefore to know who the lady was, she was told she was the Lady of Chartres. At once she interpreted this to mean the Mother of God, whose name and relics there are venerated throughout almost all the Latin world. Now going up to the altar she bent her knees in prayer; and that too did the noble attendant behind her. Then rising and stretching out her hand with much passion she said, " This church I founded, how can I suffer it to be deserted? " Thereupon the StandardBearer of Piety turning her tranquil gaze on me and pointing with her shining hand said, " I have brought him here and made him a monk, whom I will by no means suffer to be taken hence." These words in like manner the attendant repeated. No sooner had that powerful one spoken than in a moment all that ruin and waste was changed and became anew what it had been at first and the dwarf stature both of the rest and of myself was by the power that attended her command amended and made normal. After my mother looking into the future had given me an orderly narrative of this dream, I receiving it with much remorse and tears, so subdued the license of my wandering thoughts to the meaning of that welcome vision, that no longer was I drawn by a desire for another convent.
O Lady, Mother of Heaven, these and like commands after the horror of my sins and my countless revolts from thy love and service, gave me a handle for returning to thee, a song breaking forth from my heart, that the wide bosom of thy mercies cannot be closed against me even by mountains of ill deeds. . . . Ever shall I remember too, Lady of Heaven, that when, as a boy, I was eager to put on this habit, one night in a vision I was in a chapel dedicated to thee and I thought I was carried from it by two devils. And when they had taken me to the roof of the church, they fled away and let me go uninjured within the walls of that church. These things I oft recall, when I consider how little I amend, and often as I repeat those sins, adding to them sins worse than the very worst, with thee, most holy one, I take refuge to flee from the peril of despair, but not in abuse of too much hope or any hope at all.
For although I am ever sinning, compelled by my weakness, and
not through pride's wilfulness, yet I no wise lose hope of amendment.
Seven times indeed falleth the just man and riseth again If the
number seven here stands, as it usually does, for an infinitely
large number, then in however many ways a man falls by sin, if
he has but a resolve to rise again to righteousness, however much
his weak flesh trips him up, if he show but the grief of a penitent,
he doth in no wise lose the name of a righteous man. For to what
end do we cry aloud to God to bring us out of our distresses,
but that the corruption of our nature condemns us, whether we
will or no, to the service of sin? " I see it," says
he, " bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which
is in my members, for the good that I would, I do not, but the
evil that I would not, that I do," There is therefore a deep
of certain evils, into which if a man come, then cometh contempt,
and yet over other deeps cry is made unto God and the petitioner
doubteth not that his voice is heard. There is indeed a scorn
of despair begotten by excess of sinning, in which there is no
standing, in which misery standeth not. There is lastly the deep
out of which Jeremiah was drawn by a rope of rags, and although
that be deep, yet farther on it hath bottom; for despite the loosening
of the understanding by much sinning, yet reason gives some little
check, that it be not swallowed up in the bottormless gulf never
to return to a knowledge of all its iniquity.
[Note: Bland omits this chapter heading; Benton restored it]
Meantime having steeped my mind unduly in the study of versemaking, so as to put aside for such worthless vanities the serious things of the divine pages, under guidance of my folly I went so far as read the poems of Ovid and the Bucolics of Virgil and to aim at the airs and graces of a love poem in a critical treatise and in a series of letters. My mind therefore forgetting a proper severity and abandoning the modesty of a monk's calling, was led away by these enticements of a poisonous license, giving weight only to this whether some courtly phrase could be referred to some poet, with no thought how much the toil which I loved might hurt the aims of our holy profession. By love of it I was doubly taken captive, being snared by the wantonness of the sweet words I found in the poets and those which I poured forth myself and caught by immodest fleshly stirrings through thinking on these things and the like.
For since my unstable mind, unaccustomed now to hard thinking, spent itself on these trifles, no sound could come from my lips, but that which my thought prompted.
Hence it came to pass that, from the boiling over of the madness within me, I fell into certain obscene words and composed brief writings, worthless and immodest, in fact bereft of all decency. This having come to the knowledge of that master of mine, and he being much grieved thereat, it chanced that he fell asleep in the bitterness of his annoyance. And as he slept, there appeared to him the following vision. An old man with shining white hair, in fact that very one, I dare to say, who brought me to him at the beginning and had promised his love for me in the future, appeared to him and said with severity, " I wish you to give account to me for the writings that have been composed; but the hand which wrote them, is not his who wrote." When this had been related by my master, he and I gave much the same interpretation to the dream; for we sorrowed but with joy in Thy hope, O Lord, seeing Thy displeasure in that fatherly rebuke, and from the meaning of that vision taking some ground for trust that my frivolity would undergo a change to greater piety. For whereas the hand that wrote the letters, is said not to be his who wrote them, it is without doubt meant that it would not continue in such shameful doing. For it was mine and now is not, as it is written, " Change the wicked and they shall not be," and that which was mine in the practice of vice, when applied to the pursuit of virtue, became of no effect in that unworthy use of it. And yet Thou knowest, O Lord, and I confess, that at that time neither by fear of Thee, by shame, nor by respect for that holy vision was my life chastened. I put no check on that irreverence I had within me, and refrained not from the vain jests of frivolous writers. Hammering out these verses in secret and daring to show them to no one, or at least only to a few like myself, yet I read them out when I could, often inventing an author for them and I was delighted when those which I thought it inconvenient to acknowledge as mine, were praised by those who shared such studies, but whereas their author gained no praise by them, he had to be content with the enjoyment, or rather the shame of making them. But these acts, O Father, in Thine own good time Thou didst punish; for misfortune coming on me for such work, Thou didst fence in my wandering soul with much affliction and hold me down by bodily infirmity. Therefore did a sword pierce through even to my soul, while trouble touched my understanding.
And so, when the punishment of sin had brought understanding to my hearing, then at last the folly of useless study withered away, yet since I could not endure to be idle, and was compelled, as it were, to cast aside vain imaginings, with renewal of my spiritual being I turned to more profitable exercises. I began therefore all too late to pant for that knowledge that so oft had been instilled in me by many good teachers, to busy myself, that is, with commentaries on the Scriptures, frequently to study the works of Gregory, in which are best to be found the keys to that art, and according to the rules of ancient writers to treat the words of the prophets and the Gospels in their allegorical, their moral and even their mystical meaning. In this work I had to encourage me Anselm, the Abbot of Bec, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, an Italian from across the Alps the country of Augustus, a man of sublime example and holiness of life. Whilst still holding office as Prior in the aforesaid convent, he admitted me to his acquaintance and, utter child as I was in knowledge as well as age, he readily offered to teach me to manage the inner self, how to consult the laws of reason in the government of the body. He both before and during his abbacy, being a familiar visitor to the monastery welcomed for his piety and his teaching, bestowed on me so assiduously the benefits of his learning and with such ardour laboured at this, that it seemed as if I alone was the reason for his frequent visits.
He taught us then to divide the mind into three or four parts, to treat the whole of the operations of this inner mystery under sensation, will, reason and perception, showing that the first two, regarded by most and by myself as one and free from definite divisions, were not identical, which however can readily be shewn to be the same as either of those coming third or fourth. And after he had discussed certain chapters of the Gospels on this principle and most clearly explained the difference between will and sensation, which however it was plain he did not originates but got from books at hand, which did not so explicitly deal with these matters, I then began to imitate his methods in similar commentaries, so far as I could and everywhere in the Scriptures to examine carefully with all the energy of my mind anything that was morally in agreement with those ideas.
Hence it came to pass that on a day when I travelled with my Abbot to a certain convent in our province, I suggested to him as a man of great piety, that on coming to the chapter meeting, he should there preach a sermon; and he turned upon me what he was asked to do, exhorting and ordering me to do it in his place. Now the birth of Mary Magdalene is celebrated on that day. Therefore taking the subject of my discourse from the Book of Wisdom, I contented myself with that single word for the address that was required. " Wisdom," that is, " overcometh malice, reacheth from end to end and disposeth all things agreeably." When I had explained this with such oratory as I could, and had pleased my audience by the suitability of my language, the Prior of the church, no mean student of sacred literature within the limits of his understanding, in a friendly way asked me to write something which he might use for the matter of a sermon. Since therefore I knew that my Abbot would be annoyed by my writings, I approached him with caution and begged him to give me permission to please one whom he professed to love and as though I came straight from the man himself, but did not care much about it. Supposing therefore that I should write very briefly, he consented; then having snatched his consent from his mouth, I began to work at what I had in mind.
Now I had in mind to attempt a moral commentary on the beginning of Genesis, that is the Six Days. To the Commentary I prefixed a treatise of moderate length shewing how a sermon ought to be composed I followed up this preface with a figurative exposition at length of the six days with poor eloquence, but such as I was capable of. But when my Abbot saw that I was commenting on a chapter of that sacred history, he no longer took a reasonable view of the matter and when he with much anger warned me to put an end to these writings, I, seeing that such works only put thorns in his eyes, avoided both his presence and that of any who might report it to him, and completed my task in secret. For I made no notes in my tablets for the composition and writing of this or any other of my works, but committed them to the written page without alteration, as I thought them out. In that Abbot's time therefore my studies were carried on in complete secrecy. But when he was gone, finding my opportunity when the pastoral office was vacant, at last I attacked and quickly finished my work. This was contained in ten books arranged according to the abovementioned four activities of the inner man and I so carried out the moral treatment in all of them that they went from beginning to end with absolutely no change in the order of the passages. Whether in this little work I helped any one, I know not, although I have no doubt that some learned men were pleased with it; but this is certain that I gained no little profit from it myself, insomuch as it saved me from idleness, that servant of vice.
Meantime I wrote a little book in chapters on various passages
in the Gospels and the prophets, including some from the books
of Numbers, Joshua and Judges, the completion of which I am putting
off, because after finishing what I have in hand, I propose, if
I am still alive and God prompts me, to engage at times in similar
exercises In most of these I followed a figurative, in a few an
allegorical treatment in the same manner as in Genesis. Moreover,
in Genesis I gave my attention chiefly to morals, not that there
was wanting matter for thought on the allegorical side, had I
equally worked that out, but because in my opinion morals were
in these times more important than allegory, when faith by God's
help stands intact, but morals are universally debased by the
many forms of vice, and because it was neither within my power
nor my wish to enlarge my book to excessive length.
Now my mother, pleased as was her wonder at my success in learning, was much perturbed by her dread of the excesses of a dangerous time of life. Hence how earnestly did she pray that I should imitate herself. She to whom God had given such beauty, thought little of that in her which won praise, as though she was not aware of her comeliness, and cherished her widowhood as if she had loathed the suffrances of a wife's duties. Yet Thou knowest, O Lord, what loyalty, what love she rendered to her dead husband, how with almost daily sacrifices, prayers and tears, and no scant almsgiving, she strove without ceasing to release his soul, which she knew to be in prison through his sins. Wherefore by the wonderful dispensation of God it came about that her sensitive imagination saw in frequent visions what pains he endured in his purgatory. Such visions, one cannot doubt, proceed from God; for when no perverse carelessness is caused by false assumptions of the beauty of life, but a stimulus is given to prayer and almsgiving by the sight of suffering and punishment, when the remedies of the divine office are clearly demanded by the dead, ay, even by the angels, who care for the faithful dead, it is proof enough that these things are of God, because devils never seek the salvation of any man's soul. Therefore was that good woman's anxious soul kindled again at these signs, and inflamed by the intimation of his soul's torments, to constant effort by intercession for her former husband.
Hence for instance one night, a Sunday after matins in the summer, having gone to rest on her narrow bench, and beginning soon to fall asleep, she thought her spirit left her body without losing her senses. And being drawn, as it were, through a porch, at last issuing from it, she began to come near to the edge of a pit. When close to it, behold from the depths of that pit, people like goblins leapt forth, their hair seeming to be all eaten up with worms, trying to seize her with their hands and to drag her inside. And, behold, from behind the frightened woman, who was terribly distressed by their attack, there broke out a cry against them, saying " Touch her not." And compelled by that cry they leapt back into the pit. Now I omitted to say that as she passed through the porch, her one prayer to God, as she knew she had left her mortal being, was to be allowed to return to her body. Being rescued therefore from the dwellers in the pit, and being opposite to the edge thereof, she suddenly saw my father standing by her appearing as he did when a youth, and when she looked hard at him and piteously begged of him whether he were really Everard (for that had been his name), he said he was not.
Now it is no wonder that a spirit should deny the name which he had as a man; for a spirit should give no reply to spirit which is inconsistent with his spiritual nature. Moreover, that spirits should be known by names is too absurd to be believed; otherwise in the next world recognition, except that of kinsfolk, would be rare. Clearly it is not necessary for spirits to have names, since all their vision, nay, their knowledge of vision is from within. Since therefore, he denied that that was his name and yet she was as certain that it was, she then asked him where he was dwelling. And he gave her to understand that the street was not far off where he lived. But having bared his arm and his side, he shewed both of them so torn, so cut up with many wounds, that a great shuddering thereat and disquiet of heart came on her, as she looked. Moreover, there was there the figure of a little child crying so bitterly that it troubled her much when she saw it. And being moved by its cries, she said to him, " How, Lord, can you endure the wailing of this child? " " Whether I will or not," said he, " I endure it." Now the crying of the child and the wounds on the arm and side have this meaning When my father in his youth was separated from lawful intercourse with my mother through the magic arts of certain persons, some evil counsellors approached him in his youthful innocence with wicked advice to try if intercourse with other women was possible He like a young man took their advice, and having wickedly had intercourse with some woman, begat a child, which at once died before it w