Ancrene Wisse and Women’s Work for Spiritual Growth
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Work for the Anchoress
2.1. Work in Monasticism
2.2. Work in Ancrene Wisse: Domestic Chores and Intellectual Labor
The poor widow’s work is celebrated for its thoroughness and orderliness, and for its utility in spirituality. The all-important Christian duty of confessing thoroughly is taught using the images of a poor woman working efficiently to keep her house clean and tidy. Since confession, as the author acknowledges, is the part where the author explicitly refers to non-anchoritic readers and anchoresses alike, it seems that the author perceived women’s domestic chores as example that could have a vivid impact on both groups of his target audience. This decision adds a religious significance to the domestic labor commonly performed by women. The same chapter stresses that confessions must be performed frequently, asking the readers “Will a piece of woven cloth be properly bleached if it is dipped in water once? A dirty one thoroughly washed?” (AW pp. 122–23) Washing, a work explicitly performed by women, is invoked as vivid imagery to teach the readers the proper method for confessing and thereby achieving spiritual perfection (Leyser 1995, p. 151). In utilizing images related to women’s domestic labor, the work continues the devotional tradition of celebrating work as a key channel for spiritual development. Just as the women in secular domestic settings work hard to do their job of washing and cleaning well, the anchoress and any other aspiring Christians must do their work well by confessing their sins well and thoroughly. The images related to domestic chores that highlight the proper means of confession strengthen the connection between anchoritism and work, adding to the appeal of the manual to its non-anchoritic readers.Confession must be complete: that is, everything from childhood on should be confessed to one person. When a poor widow wants to clean her house, first of all she gathers the worst of the dirt on a heap, and then clears it out. Then she comes back again and makes another heap of what was left earlier, and clears that out as well. Then if the fine dust is rising in clouds, she sprinkles water on it, and sweeps it out after all the rest. In the same way, anyone making confession should clear out the smaller things after the major ones.(AW p. 119)
2.3. Work in Ancrene Wisse: Servants’ Domestic–Anchoritic Work
Do not carry on any business. An anchoress who is a tradeswoman—that is, who buys to sell at a profit—is selling her to the tradesman of hell. However, she may, on her director’s advice, sell things she makes to supply her needs. Holy men once supported themselves by the work of their hands.(AW p. 158)
Do not make any purses to win friends, except for those people your director allows, or caps or silk ribbons or laces, without permission; but cut out and sew and mend church vestments and clothes for the poor.(AW p. 160)
Such references indicate the chores performed by the anchoress within the enclosure, the poor performance of which is a sin that must be confessed. In this regard, the anchoritic attitude towards work was not dissimilar to that of monasticism in emphasizing labor as a part of devotional life. While women’s domestic chores were not particularly appreciated in the Middle Ages due to the subservient position of women in society, the works assigned to women were the forms of labor available for anchoresses in their cells. Such work becomes part of the anchoress’s duties needed in her calling, demonstrating that manual labor was a part of anchoritic spirituality, and that to become a good anchoress one had to be a good worker.Help yourselves with your own labor as far as you possibly can, to clothe and, if necessary, feed both yourself and those who work for you.(AW p. 160)
The anchoress might be symbolically dead to the world, but her goal is to live a life of devotion as a recluse, not to die in the first few days of her enclosure. Servants are unavoidable for the solitary recluse because their work—receiving and looking after provisions, fetching wood and water from the market or well, cooking and procuring foodstuff when needed—is indispensable for human survival.Choose for yourself some elderly woman, not someone who is quarrelsome or unsettled or given to idle gossip; a good woman with a well-established reputation for virtue. She is to keep the door of your cell, and, as she thinks right, to admit or refuse visitors; and to receive and look after whatever provisions are needed. She should have under her a strong girl capable of heavy work, to fetch wood and water, cook vegetables and, when ill-health demands it, to prepare more nourishing food. She must be kept under strict discipline, lest, by her frivolous behavior she desecrate your holy dwelling-place and so bring God’s name and your own vocation into contempt.
The younger servant, whose virtues are subject to scrutiny because of her necessary movement outside the anchorhold, performs the essential tasks that cannot be carried out within the enclosure. In the process, she is also expected to perform the enclosure itself by guarding her own senses. The guidelines for the outside servant connect her to the lifestyle and aspirations of a recluse, so that they are seen as part of the anchorhold that functions as it should, concealed from the world as much as possible and focused on a life of devotion.Their hair should be cut short, and their head-cloths sit low on the forehead … their overdresses should be stitched up high, and without a brooch. No man should see them without a cloak, or bareheaded. They should keep their eyes lowered … The cut of their clothes, and their dress in general, should be of a kind that makes it obvious what way of life they have chosen.(AW, p. 162)
Thus, the servants share the goal of the anchoress, whose job is to stay enclosed for the love of God, foregoing material comforts. Reminding the readers of Part 1, which offers prayer plans for the anchoress, Part 8 of the AW prescribes a series of prayers to be said around the servants’ work schedule: “If she is illiterate, she should say her Hours with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, and do whatever work she is told to do without complaining” (AW, p. 162). While the servants are expected to perform their work without complaint and be ready to hear and receive orders from the anchoress, they are also expected to keep to the Hours and pray. Mealtimes are another occasion for work and prayer for the servants, as they are recommended to remember the spiritual goals of the anchoritic life and the benefactors that enable it, in addition to their own divine blessing.It is not proper that any anchoress’s servant should ask for a fixed wage, apart from food and clothing enough for her to manage on, and the mercy of God. Nor should any servant be afraid that God will let her down, whatever may happen to the anchoress. If the external maids serve the anchoress as they are supposed to, their reward will be the exalted bliss of heaven.(AW, p. 163)
The prayer after meals implies the servants’ devotional role in the anchorhold: they first pray for their mistress the anchorite, asking for a “good end” for all members of the anchorhold. This shows their shared devotional goals; the anchoress and her maids are on the same ship in their spiritual careers. More importantly, the servants remember and pray for the benefactors that have done them good, as well as for “all Christian souls”. The servants, whose work brings them closer to the lay community to which the anchoress must become a model of devotion, partake in the public duty of the anchoress by praying for the benefactors, past and present, and for the whole Christian community. This is another indication that the maidservants were considered to be essential for the success of the anchoritic career.If they do not know the graces for meals, they should say in their place Our Father beforehand, and Hail Mary, and after the meal also, with a Creed as well, and finally say as follows: “May Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one almighty God, grant our mistress his grace in ever-increasing measure, and allow both her and us to make a good end. May he recompense all our present benefactors and have mercy on their souls, on the souls of our past benefactors, and on all Christian souls”.(AW, p. 163)
2.4. Teaching as Shared Work
3. Work and Devotion in the Middle Ages: Post-AW Evidence
Women like Katherine de Norwich would have spent great time and effort in preparing food, feeding others, and cleaning up afterwards—all works that would have been performed by female workers like the anchoress’s servants. Working to heighten devotion was a major concern for all Christians of the Middle Ages, even if they were not professionally religious. Finding means to practice devotion in their daily lives, the women of Norwich utilized their work; the less-appreciated domestic chores thus became a way to remember Christ and pursue spirituality. Similarly, the AW reveals the devotional significance attached to a woman’s daily chores within the anchorhold, with the anchoresses utilizing images of women’s work to meditate upon and partaking in the works themselves, while the servants worked to achieve and promote the deep devotion of the anchoritic women.In a literal and measured sense they record Katherine’s “treasury of merit” and her keen awareness of it, as well as revealing her wealth, status and sense of obligation to the destitute. The accounts demonstrate that she was a committed exponent of the first work on a daily basis, giving doles of food: apart from feeing a large household, with many regular additional dinner guests … Katherine daily supplied thirteen paupers with bread and herring in some form.
4. Conclusions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
1 | |
2 | The transmission history of Ancrene Wisse is well documented in the introduction to Millett’s modern English translation; see Millett (2009), pp. xxxvii–xliii for descriptions of the extent manuscripts, and pp. xliii–xlvii for the expansion of the text’s target audience in different vernaculars and Latin. |
3 | For the function of work in different medieval religious houses, see Part 3 of Ranft (2006). While Ranft does not focus extensively on AW and anchoritism, she nevertheless traces Damian’s work theology under work in the regular canons, Cistercians, Carthusians, and Mendicants, as well as women and women’s religious communities such as the Beguines. |
4 | See Jennifer Bryan (2008), Looking Inwards: Devotional Reading and the Private Self in Late Medieval England, University of Pennsylvania Press, for an in-depth study on how reading contributed to the formation of devotional subjectivity in late medieval England. |
5 | Also in AW p. 156: “… dear sisters, your food and drink have often seemed to me less than I would like. Do not fast on bread and water on any day unless you have permission”. |
6 | |
7 | See also Goldberg (1992), pp. 193–94: “It is … likely that most girls were also required to fulfill some domestic functions. This is seen from cause paper evidence. A female servant is observed in a cause of 1410 fetching food and drink for a visitor and also bringing and lighting candles. Another girl was responsible for carrying a jug of water from the River Ouse to her master’s home each day … Outside the trade sector, service must have been more exclusively a matter of housekeeping”. |
8 | |
9 | |
10 | |
11 | Women’s role as teachers of devotion is the subject of many hagiographical narratives. For St. Anne teaching the Virgin Mary, see Sheingorn (1993). For a later example, see Sabalis (2018) for fifteenth-century English texts’ depictions of St. Monica and St. Birgitta of Sweden as teachers for their children. |
12 | Warren (1985), pp. 182–83, finds an instance of an anchorhold shut down due to the recluse’s lingering attachment to the world and her maidservants’ unchaste behavior: “The Lancastrian foundation at Whalley came to an end around 1443 when the incumbent fled from the reclusorium and the monks of Whalley used the opportunity to push for the conversion of the cell and its endowment to other purposes. The recluse, Isolda de Heton, enclosed in 1436, was a widow with a minor child who found herself still tied to the world in a variety of ways. Most important, she was attempting to retain certain rights pursuant to her son’s wardship and marriage. In addition, her servants at Whalley seem to have been unchaste, the subject of some local scandal, an irritation to the Cistercian monks and perhaps to her as well”. |
References
- Aelred of Rievaulx. 2010. A Rule of Life for a Recluse, Treatises and the Pastoral Prayers. Translated by Mary Paul Macpherson. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. [Google Scholar]
- Blud, Victoria. 2017. The Unspeakable, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Literature, 1000–1400. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. [Google Scholar]
- Bryan, Jennifer. 2008. Looking Inwards: Devotional Reading and the Private Self in Late Medieval England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. [Google Scholar]
- Cannon, Christopher. 2003. Enclosure. In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing. Edited by Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 109–23. [Google Scholar]
- Davis, Carmel Bendon. 2008. Mysticism & Space: Space and Spatiality in the Works of Richard Rolle, The Cloud of Unknowing Author, and Julian of Norwich. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. [Google Scholar]
- Frankis, John. 1992. St. Zita, St. Sythe, and St. Osyth. Nottingham Medieval Studies 36: 148–50. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Garver, Valerie L. 2019. Introduction. In A Cultural History of Work in the Medieval Age. Edited by Valerie L. Garver. New York: Bloomsbury Press, vol. 2, pp. 1–12. [Google Scholar]
- Goldberg, Peter Jeremy. 1992. Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire c. 1300–1520. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Goldberg, Jeremy, and Emma Martin. 2009. Work and Leisure. In A Cultural History of Work in the Medieval Age. Edited by Valerie L. Garver. New York: Bloomsbury Press, vol. 2, pp. 165–79. [Google Scholar]
- Goodich, Michael. 1985. Ancilla Dei: The Servant as Saint in the later Middle Ages. In Women of the Medieval World: Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy. Edited by Suzanne F. Wemple and Julius Kirshner. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 119–36. [Google Scholar]
- Gunn, Cate. 2008. Ancrene Wisse: From Pastoral Literature to Vernacular Spirituality. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. [Google Scholar]
- Hanson, Jeffrey. 2024. Thomas Aquinas and the Qualification of Monastic Labor. Religions 15: 366. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Hill, Carole. 2017. Women and Religion in Late Medieval Norwich. Woodbridge: Royal Historical Society. [Google Scholar]
- Hughes-Edwards, Mari. 2012. Reading Medieval Anchoritism: Ideology and Spiritual Practice. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. [Google Scholar]
- Leyser, Henrietta. 1995. Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450–1500. New York: St. Martin’s Press. [Google Scholar]
- Millett, Bella. 2002. Ancrene Wisse and the Life of Perfection. Leeds Studies in English 33: 53–76. [Google Scholar]
- Millett, Bella. 2009. Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses. A Translation. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. [Google Scholar]
- Mycoff, David, trans. 1987. The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of Her Sister Saint Martha. Athens: Cistercian Publications. [Google Scholar]
- Ranft, Patricia. 2006. The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the Medieval Religious Renewal Movement. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. [Google Scholar]
- Sabalis, Samantha. 2018. Beyond St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary: St. Monica, St. Birgitta of Sweden, and Teaching Children the Faith in Fifteenth-Century England. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 44: 77–104. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Sheingorn, Pamela. 1993. “The Wise Mother”: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary. Gesta 32: 69–80. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Skaffari, Janne. 2009. The WOMANual: Ancrene Wisse on Instruction. In Instructional Writing in English: Studies in Honour of Risto Hiltunen. Edited by Matti Peikola, Janne Skaffari and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 35–53. [Google Scholar]
- Sutcliffe, Sebastian. 1993. The Cult of St. Sitha in England: An Introduction. Nottingham Medieval Studies 37: 83–89. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Turville-Petre, Thorlac. 1991. A Middle English Life of St Zita. Nottingham Medieval Studies 35: 102–5. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Venarde, Bruce L., ed. and trans. 2011. The Rule of Saint Benedict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Warren, Ann K. 1985. Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England. Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press. [Google Scholar]
- Watson, Nicholas, and Jacqueline Jenkins. 2006. Appendix: Records and Responses, 1394–1674. In The Writings of Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love. Edited by Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 417–55. [Google Scholar]
Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. |
© 2024 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Park, H. Ancrene Wisse and Women’s Work for Spiritual Growth. Religions 2024, 15, 1036. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091036
Park H. Ancrene Wisse and Women’s Work for Spiritual Growth. Religions. 2024; 15(9):1036. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091036
Chicago/Turabian StylePark, Hwanhee. 2024. "Ancrene Wisse and Women’s Work for Spiritual Growth" Religions 15, no. 9: 1036. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091036