by P K Adams
“No,” I said, surprising myself with a slight hesitation. “Do you?”
“I have . . . some.” His gaze darkened as it wandered to the window, faint color rising to his face. “There are many ways a life can be lived worthily, and they all have their appeal and also their price,” he said reflectively. “Right now, I don’t know if the monastic life is right for me. I don’t know if my calling is genuine, if this is what I want, or if I am only fulfilling my parents’ wish. I used to think that it was desirable, but now”—he looked me straight in the eye—“I am not so sure.”
My breath became painfully shallow. “I cannot imagine a different life for myself,” I said, feeling a clutch at my heart. “This is the only path that will allow me to do what I want to do.” I saw a shadow cross Volmar’s face. “There is no denying that it is hard; if you have any doubts, you should not undertake it. People who take vows against their conviction condemn themselves to a life of misery that can make them drift as far away from God as the most unrepentant of sinners.” I paused, finding my next words difficult but necessary. “So if it is a different kind of life that you desire, if it is marriage that you are made for, you should return to the world. Only then will you be truly happy.” I looked down at my hands, blinking to relieve the pressure building behind my eyes.
“What about you?” he asked vehemently. “Is love nothing to you?”
My heart stopped, and for a long moment I could not trust myself to speak. When I did, my voice was barely above a whisper. “My greatest love is for my studies, and for helping those who cannot find help elsewhere.” I could not look him in the eye, afraid he would read the whole truth in it. “I want to improve lives. I don’t want to be just an observer. And I won’t be able to do it if I take a husband.” I heard a tremble in my own voice as I realized that I was likely to lose Volmar. Yet married women were forever chained to the family hearth, giving birth and running the household, and I knew I could not live that life.
Silence stretched between us, and it was not the familiar, companionable silence of our early days; rather, it was tinged with a sadness I had not known since the night my parents had left me at St. Disibod. It began to fill the corners of the workshop with premature darkness, even though the sun was still high in the sky.
Volmar’s face was drawn, and his fingers squeezed the wine cup so hard his knuckles had gone white. “I know you want things that other women don’t care about,” he said at length, “but there is only so much you can achieve in this place.” He made a motion with his hand to encompass the workshop and the abbey.
“Even at St. Disibod, monastic rules give women more freedom that the obligations of marriage,” I countered.
“The prior nearly succeeded in enclosing you already. I heard him say to Brother Fulbert that it is an outrageous violation of nature for women to pursue activities of the intellect.” He paused to let it sink in—Fulbert was the abbey librarian. “Do you expect it to get better when you have taken the veil, or when Abbot Kuno is no longer at the helm?”
He was right. Everybody knew that Bother Wigbert brought me books from the library, and as long as Kuno was alive, my access would be assured. But afterwards? I had no idea, and I preferred not to contemplate it. “I am needed in the infirmary,” I said instead, feeling on firmer ground. “My skills will be enough to grant me sufficient liberty.”
“They will never give you what you want.” He shook his head. “You will be an assistant, a herbalist, always at risk of being replaced by the first monk who comes along with any medical training. They will never call you a physician, even though that is what you are.” Despite everything, indignation colored his final words, and I felt the familiar comfort of having him on my side. Would I be able to do without it?
Suddenly, the notion of leaving the abbey, of sharing my life with Volmar on our own terms, stood in my mind as a possibility. I would be a doctor, I would write, I would not stay at home to supervise cooks and maids. And he would accept it. But even as I let myself entertain this fleeting fantasy, I knew that it would not work. The world would not allow it.
“My place is here.” I said, and each word was like a knife thrust into my own heart.
Volmar lowered his head. When he lifted it again, I saw acceptance in his face but also deep pain. It was all I could do to stop myself from embracing him, from holding on to him for a little longer. “I am sorry,” I said, my words distorted by a sob I could not suppress. “I really am.” I covered my mouth, feeling the wetness on my face work its way between my fingers.
He rose from the table. “I should go.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
A moment later I listened to his footsteps outside. When they faded, a silence that had an awful finality to it fell on me with a crushing weight. Unable to bear it, I ran outside and followed Volmar, but when I arrived at the crossroad outside the infirmary, something stopped me again. I watched his lithe figure until it disappeared through the arched doors of the church.
Then I turned and pressed my palms to my eyes, pausing one more moment before I returned to my duty—and my truest calling.
22
June 1123
I became ill again. As the pain pierced me to my core, a vision of the Church as a great nourishing body, a nursery and a refuge, stood before my mind’s eye. I still wanted to enter the consecrated state but was forced to acknowledge that it was not my only desire, and each day threatened to take me before Sister Jutta to announce my decision to leave the convent for a different life. When my headaches finally subsided, it was in St. Augustine, ironically, that I found solace, rereading the account of his own struggle against temptation.
I also began to compile my notes into a medical guidebook. I first sat down to it the week before I was due to take my vows, during one of those sleepless nights when my resolve seemed to be at its weakest.
My hand moved quickly, the pent-up emotions finding a channel at last.
“Et ut mundus in prosperitate est, cum elementa bene et ordinate officia sua exercent sic etiam, cum elementa ordinate in homine operantur, eum conservant et sanum reddunt.”
As the earth prospers when the four elements exercise their offices properly, so when they work properly in a person, they preserve and return him to health.
The soft scratch of the quill on the parchment, reassuring and familiar, quieted my mind, and a sense of clarity descended on me.
I wrote for hours until the sky blushed pink with the first hint of dawn. I put the sheets aside and went out into the courtyard to find the disk of the sun, still tinged with the pale red of the early morning, rising above the eastern wall of the convent to the trill of a nightingale, a lonesome fanfare. In that moment, I longed to have Volmar with me to welcome the new day.
If I took the vows, that would never happen, and right then it seemed an unfathomable loss. What if this was not a temptation but a gift, and I was refusing it? Was I any different from Jutta squandering her health, another divine blessing?
I stood there as the battle of two contradictory elements inside me—fire and earth, choler and melancholy—rendered me miserable. I was being forced to question everything for which I had strived and in which I believed, and I had nobody to share that burden with me. If Griselda had not left, I would have someone to confide in, and I knew she would understand. But she was gone, and I was utterly alone.
On the eve of the feast of St. Disibod the following Sunday, I stood before Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, exhausted from lack of sleep and poor appetite. Jutta had remarked on my wanness earlier that day and praised it as proper and fitting for my soon to be holy state, but Juliana had remained silent, regarding me with what I thought was pity. Yet she had no way of knowing what was in my heart.
The ceremony was held at dusk as the profession of anchorite vows was meant to symbolize a death in life akin to a burial. I had remained inside the convent all day
until Abbot Kuno had come to escort me to the church. The evening was overcast, with none of the Rhenish sunset glory. That disappointed me, for I would have liked the fiery light that normally flooded the courtyard at that hour to usher me into my new life.
I entered the church barefoot and clad in a white robe, hoping fervently that the imminent shield of my vows would protect and deliver me from the anguish once and for all.
The interior was dim, the only light coming from the tapers flickering around the chancel where the monks had taken their seats, their shapes outlined against the wood panels of their stalls. As they intoned Veni Creator Spiritus, I glanced up at the small gray squares of the clerestory windows; by the time my new life began, they would be completely dark.
I approached the altar. Uphold me by your promise and I shall live; let my hopes not be in vain, I recalled the words of a psalm in which I wanted desperately to believe.
I lay prostrate while Brother Gottlieb read from the Scriptures. “If you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the Lord your God will demand it of you.” The words reflected hollowly off the stone walls, acquiring a quality of admonition for which I was grateful. “Whatever your lips utter, you must be sure to do because you made your vow freely to the Lord your God.”
With that exhortation ringing in my ears, I bowed before the archbishop as he sprinkled holy water, blessed me with frankincense, and gave me a white veil. “Then he said to them:” he quoted from an evangelist, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
The symbolic funeral rites commenced with an antiphon followed by psalms from the Office of the Dead before the monks led me back to the convent. The archbishop sprinkled the doorstep with holy water, and as he did so, the words Juliana had spoken in the midst of a dark night of despair came to me: And now I am left alone, sealed in this tomb!
Before I crossed the threshold, I kneeled and prayed aloud, aware of the faint tremble in my voice. “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place for ever: here I dwell, for I have desired it.”
The next day I went to work at the infirmary as usual, and Brother Wigbert informed me that Volmar had left the abbey without professing his vows.
23
December 1124
Jutta’s practices finally caught up with her in her thirty-third year. Brought to a state of enfeeblement well ahead of her time, she looked like a frail old woman, and the periods of convalescence between her bouts of illness had grown increasingly shorter. When her fasts had turned into a refusal of all food, accompanied by extended vigils, I knew that she would not rise from her bed again. It was the winter of the year 1124.
I still did not understand what had made Jutta choose to use her time in this world—full as it was already of violence, want, and disease—to make her life more painful than it had to be. Four days before Christmas, when there was a stillness in the air that usually portended snow, I went to bathe her forehead with yarrow water and found her sitting on her pallet. It was the only concession to comfort she had made during her illness but she had insisted it be strewn with ashes. Jutta’s eyes were shining with an unnatural light, something I had seen in gravely ill patients before, and it bode nothing good.
“You are weak, Sister; you should not exert yourself,” I said as I put down the bowl.
“I must keep vigil for the coming of my Heavenly Spouse. The moment is near.”
I touched the towel to her face and felt the fever through the cloth.
“My only care as I depart this life,” she resumed, “is to leave the convent in reliable hands.”
There was an opportunity in this admission, and I took it. “If you let me bring you some food and water, you will strengthen and such a transition won’t be necessary just yet.”
“The time is short.” Jutta repeated, excitement bubbling under the surface of her voice. “I want you to take over when I am gone.”
My hand froze midair. “But I am not the next in line. Sister Juliana—”
“Juliana never wanted this life.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Even so, you are worthier than anybody I know.” She gazed at me with her usual intensity, and I looked away. If she was asking me, who was so averse to asceticism, to uphold the convent’s reputation in that area, I was not going to make that promise.
“I don’t think I can follow your example.” I admitted honestly.
Jutta’s gaze did not waver. “You can do more than I did . . . I have mortified my flesh, but it is to you that God chose to speak.” She was tiring, and her voice dropped to scarce above a whisper. “Use all you have learned for the elevation of the people to help them understand . . . ” she trailed off.
“I have been working on a book of medical treatments,” I confessed on the spur of the moment.
“That is good. You have a lot to teach others, but don’t stop there.”
“You don’t mean”—my eyes widened—“that I should write about matters of faith?”
A barely perceptible nod.
“But how? Will I even be allowed?”
“It will not be easy to make your voice heard, but that is not a reason not to try.” The effort of speaking was becoming too much for her. “But now, promise me that if the sisters elect you, you will accept the burden.”
I considered this for a long moment. I knew this day would come, but I would have preferred more time to prepare. “I promise,” I said nonetheless, for the timing was beyond my control. If this was how it had to be, I would do it; otherwise, who knew what would become of us?
I dipped the towel in the water again and set out to wash her hands and feet. Her body trembled slightly, as if her viriditas, so weak and languid just a short while ago, had suddenly stirred and began to boil under her skin, ready to burst out of that unwelcoming dwelling and return to the world. “Are you not afraid of death, Sister?” I asked as the window shutters rattled in their hinges, the wind picking up ahead of the snow.
“Fear is of this world.” The corners of Jutta’s mouth curled up in a rare smile. “Yet the world is only a thoroughfare, and we pilgrims upon it toiling on the way to our sacred destination. Death puts a blessed end to all sorrow, so why should I be afraid? I long to be dissolved and to be with Christ.”
“I hope that when the time comes, the passage will be easy for you. You have suffered enough.”
“There is no such thing as enough suffering because the flesh turns to sin the moment you stop chastising it. I welcome it.” There was a peculiar gleam in Jutta’s eyes, and I was stunned to see that it was one of pleasure—it was sensual.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Instinctively, my hand went up to my brow as if to shield myself from the shattering realization. May God have mercy on her when she finally stands before Him, I thought. May He not hold her sin against her as He would a thief’s or a murderer’s because she may not have been responsible for what she had done.
In my years in the infirmary, I had seen people who did harm to themselves or others prompted by a disease of the mind that robbed them of free will and sound judgement. It was due to an imbalance of humors in the brain, of a mysterious origin, and extremely hard to treat. Why had I not seen this before?
“I would like to confess.” Jutta’s voice reached me through the fog of my stupefaction.
Pity hollowed out my chest. “I will arrange that with Father Abbot.”
I wrapped up the ablution, for there was not much time left. For all the purity of her life, Jutta must not die unshriven.
An hour later, we carried her to the gate. Snow was already falling, and the abbot’s cowl sparkled in the quivering candlelight as we opened the grilled window so he could hear her confession. When it was over, he passed us a viaticum and a vial of blessed oil to be put on seven parts of Jutta’s body. The rite compl
eted, she donned the white veil in which she had taken her vows and asked us to keep vigil with her. We prayed and sang together as the snowstorm intensified, and in the small hours of the morning, Jutta von Sponheim drifted off to sleep never to awaken again.
Tradition called for all sisters to be involved in the washing and preparing of the body of one of their own for burial, but I decided to do it alone. I removed the sackcloth robe that had been Jutta’s only earthly attire and found a hair shirt underneath. Not altogether surprised, I took it off too, but, as the marble-like nakedness of the body unaccustomed to the rays of the sun came into view, I felt cold sweat break out at the base of my neck.
Leaning on the edge of the table, I closed my eyes and thanked God for having had the foresight to exclude Juliana and Gertrude from the rite because fastened tightly around Jutta’s right thigh, a metal chain was sunk deeply into the flesh that was horribly inflamed and infected. It had to have been there for years because scar tissue had grown around parts of it while other areas were covered with blisters—crimson, hot, and pus-oozing in life, now bluish-purple and dry. An awful smell rose from the wound, and to be able to proceed, I had to tear up a linen towel and tie a strip around my nose and mouth.
It took some searching to find the clasp that held the cilice together, and I unhooked it with effort. My stomach pitched into my throat for one dreadful moment, but I steadied myself with a few breaths, for I was determined not to leave that terrible instrument buried in Jutta’s body. I pulled firmly, and the band began to come out one link at a time, the inward-facing spikes emerging with awful regularity from within the withered muscle with a soft tearing sound.
When it was all out, I turned the body on its side to examine the back. The old wounds had scared over so thickly that they had long since stopped bleeding under the lashes of the whip. So that was it. The festering mutilation on the thigh was the true cause of Jutta’s recurring fevers, her steady weakening, and eventually her demise. It was nothing short of a miracle that she had lived so long. What unimaginable pain it must have been! This was why she had never allowed me to tend to it—she had not wanted it to heal.