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maid of above forty yenrs of age ! She was the maid of the princess Boi'i;hese, and the daughter of another do- mestic, and had now changed the service of the princess, where she was a menial, for a life in a monastery, where she was an eqnal of the sisterhood. The princess, iu a foolish pride, displayed the jewels of the family."
On the continent of Europe nunneries were not done away with as soon as the Keformation was introduced. Those who are at all familiar with the history of the 16th century must be well aware how much the spirit preceded the practice of religious reforms. Monastic foundations, among other institutions, were suffered for some time after the new doctrines had been widely dis- seminated, and the "evangelical doctrine" was received by and preached in many a convent of either sex with- out seemingly a suspicion that it was soon to be deemed incompatible with their existence. Stranger still is the story of the Cistercian abbey of which Heyot speaks (vol. V, pt. iv, ch. 35) as situated in Frauenberg, in West- phalia, which was partly Komanist and partly Lutheran, and of which the abbesses were of both denominations alternately; adding that there were various other ab- beys in the same country^, both of men and women, which were wholly Lutheran. Of the " Secular Canon- esses" — a body closely analogous to the Berpiines (q. v.) — he tells us (vol. vi, pt. iv, ch. 50 sq.) that at St. Ste- phen of Strasburg they were Zwinglian from the mid- dle of the IGtli century to 1689 ; that at Gandersheim, Quedlinburg, Herford, and elsewhere in Germany, they were Lutherans in his time. He speaks in like manner of some Danish convents (vol. vi, pt. iv, ch. 55) where the nuns, although they had embraced the Reformed doctrines, continued to live in communities under a su- perior, such as those of St. Dominic at Copenhagen. See, however, the article Sisterhoods.
The following orders of nuns, among others of less note, were in England prior to the Reformation : 1. The nuns of the Order of Fontevrault, of which the abbess of Fontevrault was superior : they had their first estab- lishment at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, and possessed only two other houses. 2. The nuns of the Order of St, Clare, or, as they were denominated from their scanty endowments, " the poor Clares." St. Clare was born in the same town, and was contemporary with St. Francis; and the nuns of St. Clare, observing the Franciscan rule, were sometimes called Minoresses, and their house, withort Aldgate, in London, was called the Minories. Blanche, queen of Navarre, first introduced them into England. 3. Brigittines, or nuns of our holy Saviour, instituted by Bridget, duchess of Nercia, in Sweden, about the middle of the 14th century. They followed the rule of St. Augustine, with some additions. There was but one house in England belonging to the Brigit- tine nuns, the celebrated establishment at Sion House, in jMiddlcsex. See under the respective names of the orders.
Tiie religious houses in England were mercilessly treated at the Reformation. In reference to Scotland, Cuimingham says, in his Church History, "It was not to be expected that the female mind, ever susceptible of religious impressions, should withstand the tendency to monasticism at that time so prevalent. At Edin- burgh, 15er\vick, St. Bathans, Coldstream, Eccles, Had- dington, Aberdeen, Dunbar, and several other places, there were nunneries; and within these were ladies connected with many of the noblest families." In 1665 the Five-mile Act came into operation throughout the country. The nuns of Scotland revered as the first of their order in that country a legendary St. Brigida, who is fabled to have belonged to Caithness, to have re- nounced an ample inheritance, lived in seclusion, and finally to have died at Abernethy in the 6th century. Church chroniclers relate that before Coldingham was erected into a priory for monks it had been a sanctuary for nuns, who acquired immortal renown by cutting off their noses and liiis to render themselves repidsive to some i)iratical Danes who had landed on the coast. The sisterhood of Lincluden were of a different mind, for
they were expelled by Archibald, earl of Douglas, for violating their vows as the brides of heaven, and the house was converted into a collegiate church.
History contains no record of tlie influence which these devoted virgins exercised upon the Church or the world ; and we may well believe that, shut up in their cloisters and confined to a duU routine of daily duty, they^ could exercise but little. They would chant their matins and vespers, count their beads, employ them- selves with needlework, and in many cases vainly pine for that world which their parents or their own childish caprice had forced them to abandon ; but the world coidd not witness their piety, nor penetrate their thoughts.
Dr. De Sanctis, who for many years occupied a high official position at Rome, describes three classes of those who take the veil : 1. Young girls, who become interest- ed in religion, and, blindly following the path of piety, believe the priest's declamations against conjugal love and domestic affection as unholy and tending to eradi- cate the love of Christ. 2. Those who, failing to cap- tivate the regard of men, are yet conscious of an irresist- ible need of loving some object, and therefore seek to be loved, as they say, by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is represented as a young man of marvellous beauty and most winning look, with a heart shining with love, and seen transparent in his breast. 3. Those who, being educated from childhood in the nuimery, remain there, and become nuns without knowing why, and give up with alacrity a world which they have never seen. Dr. De Sanctis alludes to some cases of notorious immoral- ity, and says :