Siblings and the sexes within the medieval religious life

Church History, March, 2008 by Fiona J. Griffiths

In addition to the tangible theological benefits that Elisabeth provided, Ekbert also profited from her personal spiritual strengths. It was most likely Elisabeth who prompted him to enter the religious life, and she who encouraged him to seek ordination. (60) She was, moreover, active on his behalf in spiritual intercession. On one occasion, Elisabeth comforted a priest (possibly Ekbert) who had accidentally spilled the consecrated wine at the Eucharist. (61) In his Death of Elisabeth, Ekbert describes Elisabeth as "that chosen lamp of heavenly light, that virgin outstanding and honored by the abundant grace of God, that splendid gem of our monastery, the leader of our virginal company." Reflecting more directly on her influence on him, Ekbert wrote that "she bought me forth into the light of untried newness; she led me to the intimate ministry of Jesus my Lord; with her honeyed mouth she used to offer me divine consolation and instruction from heaven and made my heart taste the first fruits of the sweetness hidden from the saints in heaven." (62)

Ekbert's sense of his sister's spiritual superiority is echoed in the writings of Aelred, the Cistercian abbot of Rievaulx. In the rule that he penned for his sister's religious life, Aelred recalls their youth together, bemoaning his past sins and reminding her of her spiritual care for him: "You mourned for me and upbraided me often when we were young and after we had grown up." (63) Even though Aelred had attained the abbatial dignity by the time of writing, he nonetheless continued to see his sister as his spiritual superior. Commenting that "we have run the same course, we were alike in everything: the same father begot us, the same womb bore us and gave us birth," Aelred nevertheless contrasts his own life of sin to the holy example of his sister, who remained continent while he "freely abandoned [himself] to all that is base." (64) "O sister," he writes: "How much more happy is the man whose ship, full of merchandise and loaded with riches, is brought to a safe homecoming by favorable winds than he who suffers shipwreck and barely escapes death with the loss of all?" (65)

The belief, expressed by Leander, Gregory of Nyssa, Ekbert, and Aelred, as well as countless others, that women had the potential to surpass men in their piety and the intimacy of their relationship to Christ deeply influenced men's interactions with women, adding to the traditional idea that brothers ought to attend to their sisters' needs, a sense of the real benefit to men of providing care. Whether men expected to achieve salvation through women, to gain access through them to visionary experiences, or to profit from the spiritual encouragement that women evidently provided, men clearly saw tangible benefits in their care for women. It is not surprising, then, that the relationship between a brother and his sister very often centered on the provision of spiritual care, as, for instance, in the case of Christina of Markyate, who received significant spiritual support from her ordained brother, Gregory, a monk at the neighboring monastery of St. Albans.