The Greenest Branch Page 3

  The abbot inclined his head, visibly flattered. “And pious novices.”

  “Indeed.” My father nodded. “The one I can vouch for—my own daughter—is endowed with exceptional gifts of spirit, and we are honored that she will be joining Sister Jutta and the other women who have elected to lead most holy lives as anchorites.”

  At Bemersheim, Count Stephan had spoken proudly of Jutta’s ascetic inclinations, which seemed only to have deepened at St. Disibod. Anchorites were the most devout men and women of God, who chose to live in complete seclusion. They had food and water brought to them and refuse taken away, and that was usually the extent of their interaction with the world. My mother was not sure if I would find such a life to my liking. In the weeks since the count’s visit, she had worked tirelessly to persuade her husband to negotiate a delayed novitiate for me, to which he had finally, if begrudgingly, consented.

  Now, standing beside him, she despaired of his meandering.

  “We are pleased also,” the abbot assured him graciously.

  “Father Abbot,” my father resumed, prompted by a discreet nudge. “Hildegard is only eleven years old.”

  Kuno lifted his abundant eyebrows.

  “We would ask that her novitiate be delayed until she is sixteen years of age, so she can take her vows at eighteen.”

  My mother thought she had heard a gasp from Prior Helenger, who raised his head for the first time.

  “Our custom dictates that child oblates begin their novitiate at fourteen,” the abbot protested.

  “A custom is not an abiding rule.” My father sounded almost apologetic. It had been my mother’s idea to write to the learned monks at Lorsch to find out exactly what Regula Benedicti said about the maximum age and duration of a novitiate. It said nothing. “We request that an exception be made because of Hildegard’s age. It would be of great benefit if she were given more time to prepare for the consecrated life, so her vows might be all the more pleasing to God.”

  “The Rule may not prescribe exactly when the novitiate should start”— the pleased look faded from Kuno’s face— “but as abbot, I have discretion in the matter, and I see no reason to break with our tradition, especially as your daughter has already turned ten, the minimum age of acceptance into a monastic community set by the Tenth Council of Toledo.”

  The prior nodded in haughty approval, and my mother turned to my father expectantly. But his face only said, I have tried. There is nothing more I can do.

  She made the decision in an instant. “With your permission, Father Abbot, as her parents, it is our wish that Hildegard should reach the age of reason before making such a commitment.” Then she added, more forcefully, “We have come here on the recommendation of Count Stephan von Sponheim, who holds this abbey in high esteem. However, we can easily secure a place for our daughter at St. Eucharius, Hirschau, or the new Laach priory that is fast developing a great reputation.”

  The prior’s expression froze in shocked disbelief, but the abbot’s face betrayed a shadow of worry that was enough for my mother to realize he needed my dowry.

  A moment of tense silence followed as Kuno struggled with the decision. Abbeys preferred short oblatures because during that time the candidate could still change his or her mind and withdraw, rare though it was, and take their dowry with them. Once the novitiate began, a departure meant forfeiting the dowry. “I will grant your request,” he said finally.

  “Father Abbot, are you sure?” the prior’s voice was almost a hiss. “Hildegard belongs to the Church; why should she be given a choice? She is but a girl-child—”

  “I made my decision, Brother Prior.” He cut him off with a gesture.

  Helenger’s lips twisted as if he had swallowed something bitter, but he fell silent.

  “Can this provision be added to the dedication letter?” my father asked.

  The abbot motioned to a scribe who had been sitting by the window and instructed him to add the relevant clause. The monk returned to his desk, and soon the document was ready for the seal and signatures.

  These steps completed, my father laid a heavy leather purse on the abbot’s desk. Monastic endowments took various forms; lands, quarries, or mines were commonly deeded to the religious house by parents or guardians. Others chose to pay money. The golden bezants in my father’s purse were his reward for service in the Holy Land, and he was proud of it, for he considered freeing Jerusalem from the Saracen to have been his duty as a Christian. And now this treasure would uphold his family’s standing and support the monks’ holy work.

  “We are honored that you have chosen our house as your daughter’s spiritual refuge, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that her service bears fruit.” Abbot Kuno rolled up the parchment and handed it to Helenger, who shot my father a look of contempt for allowing his woman to have so much say in family matters.

  My father bowed. “That is our sincere wish also.”

  The abbot rose as the bells rang out for terce. “I will send Brother Adam, our guest-master, to show you around the abbey,” he said, bidding them wait in his parlor.

  A moment later, my parents watched the two monks cross the courtyard toward the church, the prior talking animatedly and the abbot shaking his head. When they were out of earshot, my father turned to my mother. “Did you just give an ultimatum to the abbot of St. Disibod?” He tried to sound severe, but the brazenness of it was almost entertaining.

  “It was not something I relished, husband, but I had to make sure Hildegard was not enclosed for life while being little more than a babe, and the way your petitioning was going—”

  “But what if he said no?! You know very well we cannot afford any of the other places.”

  She impatiently swept her hand to encompass the abbey compound. “Just look at this place. It may have an ambitious abbot at its helm, but it still needs a lot of work, and that requires funds. You saw the state of the guesthouse.” The walls of their quarters had not been whitewashed in a long time, and the door hinges squeaked atrociously. When the lights were out, she could swear she saw the sky through cracks in the roof beams.

  “We are not offering a dowry that will make a significant difference.” In addition to the golden bezants, my father was gifting a bale of white silk for altar cloth and a reliquary containing a finger bone of St. Simeon, an early Christian martyr, also from Jerusalem. “It is not as valuable as fertile land or a good acreage of forest with sturdy oaks.”

  “That may be, but the future of Church lands is uncertain.” My mother dropped her voice as many people did when mentioning the imperial conflict with the pope. “Any income counts to abbots like Kuno. I am sure that is what he was just explaining to the prior.”

  My father narrowed his eyes; he had not thought of it like that.

  “Besides,” she added, “it did not hurt to remind him that we are on friendly terms with Count Stephan, who is quite possibly his largest benefactor.”

  He nodded admiringly. “If you were a man, you would make a fine diplomat,” he said, just as the door opened and Brother Adam, a pale-faced monk with a deferential manner, appeared and apologized for the wait.

  Outside, the sky was overcast again, threatening rain. All around, there were signs of a community in transition: new buildings, ongoing construction, and structures that were old and would have to be replaced. The much-mended palisade wall looked ancient at a time when stone was increasingly the choice of builders. But the church was new, its gray stone silhouette looming over the courtyard. The monks’ cloister was attached to it on one side. The bulk of the church was finished, though work was still being done on the roof; scaffolding surrounded the tower that crowned the structure at the point where the nave intersected the transept.

  They stopped outside so as not to disturb the monks who were singing terce, the mid-morning office, and Brother Adam explained that the church had replaced a wooden
chapel that had become too small to accommodate the growing community.

  “How long has it been under construction, Brother?” my father asked.

  The monk thought about it. “Must be nine years now. It was started by the previous abbot, but work proceeded slowly for lack of funds. It picked up after Abbot Kuno took over.”

  “Count Stephan von Sponheim speaks highly of his efforts.”

  “Our abbot knows many great lords in the Rhineland, and his dedication has inspired much generosity. In fact,” Brother Adam added, “Sister Jutta’s endowment contains a quarry downriver near Bingen, and the stone was used to finish the church.”

  My father shot my mother a glance that said, This is what a large dowry can pay for. Meanwhile, a thin drizzle began to fall and the guest-master led them toward the smaller, unpaved courtyard on the southern side of the church. At one end stood a pair of thatch-roofed buildings, one of which faced a garden hemmed by shrubs that formed a natural hedge. Brother Adam said they were the infirmary and the medicine workshop, run by Brother Wigbert, the abbey physician.

  At the other end, the women’s convent was nestled in a corner of the abbey. Unlike the infirmary, it was surrounded by a fence of simple logs tied together, tall enough to obscure the view of the inside. Consisting of two plain buildings of roughly hewn planks with small, shuttered windows, it had a cheerless, makeshift look to it.

  “This is where Sister Jutta and two others are living.” Their guide lowered his eyes decorously. “They are the first women to have ever resided at St. Disibod.”

  The courtyard-facing house was the anchoresses’ dorter, he added, while the other was the chapel. My mother felt a lump in her throat as she took in the poor space that was to become my new home, which looked even more miserable in the rain. Having exhausted the subject, the monk was already turning back.

  Then he noticed my father examining the section of the abbey wall that ran from the convent to the kitchens behind the church. It was taller and thicker than elsewhere, and it had a disused-looking watchtower embedded in it. “You may be wondering why this wall is so fortified, my lord,” the monk said politely.

  “Indeed, I am.” He peeked through the doorless opening into the watchtower. Despite its bigger size, the wall was in even poorer shape. Some of its beams were broken at the top, giving it a forlorn appearance.

  “When St. Disibod, our holy founder, arrived here centuries ago to baptize the local Franks, he camped on this mountain with his followers. For years they were exposed to attacks from the pagan hordes that wanted to drive them away, so they built a wall around their abodes. What you are looking at is the oldest part of that wall; the rest was replaced in later times.”

  Then he added, “It is Abbot Kuno’s plan to replace the entire wall”—he raised his eyes piously to the sky— “with God’s help.”

  Behind his back, my mother rolled her eyes; the help the abbey needed was far more likely to come from novices’ purses than any divine intervention.

  In the guesthouse, my mother fastened my golden hair under the veil. “This is a special day for you, my dove,” she said. “From now on your life will be spent in prayer and work. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, mother,” I replied solemnly.

  She walked around to face me and pulled a tiny wooden box from the pouch at her belt. “I want you to know that even though you have left your family home, you will never be far from our thoughts.” Her face was serious, her eyes full of sadness.

  “And you from mine!” I assured her eagerly, too excited to be sad just yet.

  She smiled briefly, but the smile did not reach her eyes. “You are so young, and I fear that as time goes by you may start forgetting.” She paused to control the tremble in her voice, then lifted the box. “That is why I am giving this to you to keep with you always.” She opened the lid to reveal a small lump of salt, smooth and white, but of a whiteness that was almost translucent. It was shaped like a heart, though irregularly so, with one side slightly bigger than the other. “Your father brought this for me from Alzey the year you were born,” she said. “I want you to have it to remind you of home.”

  I took the box and examined the gift. “I will always carry it with me,” I said, clasping my fingers around it, then I looked up at my mother’s face, “even when I go to the church.”

  She dropped her gaze. “Sweet child, you will not be going to the big church after today.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the anchoresses vowed to live in seclusion, and they do not leave the enclosure.”

  I frowned. “Does that mean I won’t be able to go into the forest to pick flowers either?”

  “I am afraid not. The beauty of the world is not for anchoresses to enjoy.”

  I was confused and thought my mother must have been mistaken. Nonetheless, my next words surprised me. “But I am not an anchoress yet; I am only an oblate, so I don’t have to do everything the same way.”

  My mother opened her mouth, but no words came out. Afterward, I would sometimes wonder if she was loath to quash my hopes, or if the simple logic of what I had said prevented her from contradicting me. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

  She proceeded to secure my veil, and as she did so she said softly, as if to herself, “Let God sort this out, as he ultimately does all things.”

  But I could feel her hands trembling.

  The oblation ceremony took place during the evening office of vespers, by which time the rain was falling steadily, at times lashing horizontally in the chilly wind. The lay brothers had lit candles in the nave and around the altar, but shadows lingered in the corners and under the low-vaulted ceiling as the monks filed through the door from the cloister and took their seats in the stalls. From the front pew, my family and I listened to their voices soar to the rafters and echo off the walls.

  Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto

  Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper

  Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

  After the first reading, a succession of four psalms followed. The music was so sweet and the cadence of the Latin words so mesmerizing that my head began to swim. The blazing candles seemed haloed by scintillating stars that vanished and reappeared amidst the swirls of incense that rose heavily and dissipated into the corners of the church. It was exquisite but also painful, and I had to close my eyes against the brightness. The weightless sensation I had sometimes experienced at Bermersheim returned, and I felt as if I were floating, supported and surrounded by light.

  “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew at the tax collector’s booth . . . and He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed,” the abbot’s voice reached me.

  The monks intoned another psalm, and I approached the altar and knelt before the abbot, who laid both hands on my head. “We beseech you, Lord God, to look upon your servant Hildegard who embarks on her monastic journey with infinite love; we ask your Son to bestow His blessings, and the Holy Spirit to offer guidance as she labors on the path toward earthly perfection.”

  He turned to a novice who held a vessel of holy water and a lighted taper. He handed the candle to me and sprinkled the water on my head to the chant of Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

  After the monks filed back to the cloister, the abbot led us to the women’s convent. The rain had stopped, and the wind had died down. The convent’s small windows, lighted by oil lamps, seemed almost welcoming.

  The door opened and two anchoresses appeared on the threshold with folded arms. Sisters Adelheid and Juliana were no more than twenty years old and had the reticent air of those unaccustomed to seeing outsiders. Sister Jutta, in keeping with her adherence to the rule of seclusion, did not come out. I studied the women who were to become my companions, their heads covered by gray veils. They gazed back, their expressions serious and steady, though not unfriendl
y. They wore gray robes of coarse wool without so much as a hemp cord around the waist, and they stood barefoot.

  “Holy sisters,” the abbot addressed the anchoresses, “I have brought Hildegard of Bermersheim to share your simple abode. I ask you to impart your wisdom on her and provide her with spiritual guidance as she prepares for the consecrated life.”

  The women bowed their heads, and Sister Adelheid extended her hand. I glanced at my parents, blinking away a sudden sting of tears. But I knew my duty and took the proffered hand, stepping into the dimness of the enclosure.

  The door closed behind me, and everything was silent as night fell on the abbey.

  This, too, my mother related to me later in her letter: early the next morning, they assembled outside the church under a gray sky. The gravestones in the monks’ cemetery were still wet from the rain, but the air was dry, and a cold wind blew from the north. From time to time, my mother glanced toward the enclosure until my father noticed her brooding aspect.

  “I am impressed by the work Abbot Kuno has done here.” He tried to lift her spirits. “I reckon the abbey’s best days are still ahead.”

  “It will take a long time.” She did not even bother to hide the bitterness in her voice.

  “Physical decay is not nearly as bad as a spiritual one.” The previous night at supper, the abbot had complained about the lax rules, corruption, and lack of discipline found in so many monasteries that a group of French Benedictines decided to leave their house at Molesme and establish a new foundation at Cîteaux dedicated to serving God with simplicity, modesty, and rigor. “Thankfully, this abbey is guided with a firm hand,” he opined as they rode out through the gate.

  The image of the abbot’s deputy, Prior Helenger, with his bloodless lips and eyebrows set in a permanent frown, stood before my mother’s eyes, and she doubted that optimism. But she kept her misgivings to herself. “Let us hope, for Hildegard’s sake, that his management of souls is at least as good as his management of the estate,” she said instead.