Ruling the Spirit. Claire Taylor JonesЧитать онлайн книгу.
chorales habeant secundum ordinem [they should have notes and choral books according to the order].”39 The German sisters, at least, were thus expected to make an effort to conform to the same Office as that celebrated by the male branch of the order.40 Their ability to use the Latin text of this Office as a source for contemplative devotion is a different issue, to which I will now turn.
Women’s Literacy in the Constitutions
The Constitutions for Dominican Sisters prescribed a forma vitae in which the Latin-language Divine Office would provide the devotional centerpiece for women of the order. In order to evaluate this expectation fully, we must examine the place of Latin in the sisters’ Constitutions and clarify what we mean by “Latin literacy” among female religious. In the Introduction I surveyed the recent work that has been done to recover the levels and forms of literacy attained by medieval nuns through careful scrutiny of surviving manuscripts. Many of these studies have briefly addressed the issue of normative expectations but correctly conclude that the norms can tell us little about the reality.41 Furthermore, despite recognition of multiple levels of literacy, whether women knew Latin continues to be bound up with discussions of whether they read Latin theological treatises or whether they were capable of composing Latin documents, both of which are separate issues from the Latin of the Office.
With regard to the expectations for Dominican nuns in particular, the question is more difficult to answer, because Humbert of Romans’s final version of their Constitutions contains very little on the matter. Scholars of Dominican women’s literacy have taken recourse to other sources for more insight. Some have looked to the earlier stages of statutes for Dominican women which address the sisters’ education more explicitly and thoroughly.42 One may also turn to Humbert’s model sermon treatise, De eruditione praedicatorum, where he declares women inept for higher learning but advises parents to teach their young daughters the psalter, the Office for the Dead, and the Little Hours of the Virgin in order to prepare them for a religious career.43 It is not clear, however, that these statements affected or were even received by Dominican women.44 Recently, Julie Ann Smith has examined the expectations for literacy as they changed over the evolution of the women’s Constitutions.45 I follow her diachronic approach here but arrive at a different conclusion. Namely, the vagueness of the final Constitutions as regards literacy and learning is legible as something closer to positive encouragement when read against the earlier San Sisto Rule for Magdalenes and the Constitutions for Montargis.
In the 1259 Constitutions, the only instructions concerning teaching or learning within the community are to be found in the chapter on novices.
Item nouicie, et alie sorores que apte sunt, in psalmodia et officio diuino studeant diligenter, preter conuersas, quibus sufficiat ut sciant uel addiscant ea que debent pro horis dicere. Omnes uero in aliquo laborerio addiscendo uel exercendo occupentur.46
Item, novices and other sisters who are fit should apply themselves diligently to psalmody and the Divine Office, except for the laysisters, for whom it is sufficient to know or learn the things they ought to say for the hours. Certainly, in some workroom all should be occupied with learning or doing exercises.
Despite the brevity of this passage it reveals greater expectations than that the sisters would merely learn to sing the Office. True, the conversae simply should learn (addiscant) what they need for the hours, which the previous chapter of the Constitutions had specified as the Pater noster alone.47 Nevertheless, the novices who were to become choir sisters should apply themselves to (studeant) the psalms and the Office. The word choice is telling, as is the injunction that apt sisters should continue to do this after profession.48 Interested and intelligent women are expected to engage the Latin text of the psalms and the Office outside the times ordained for worship. The use of exercendo is also interesting, although ambiguous. Exercitia could refer to contemplative or even mortificatory spiritual exercises, but the Constitutions exclusively use the term disciplina to describe this kind of activity. It would seem, therefore, that some sort of schoolroom is foreseen where sisters may do educational exercises in Latin grammar.
In addition to the passage above, the chapter on prayers for the dead reveals some further information regarding what the laysisters are supposed to say for their hours instead of the Office: yet more repetitions of the Pater noster. “A festo sancti dyonisii ad aduentum pro anniuersario fratrum et sororum, litterate sorores psalterium, non litterate quingenta pater noster dicant [On the Feast of St. Denis in Advent for the anniversary of the brothers and sisters, literate sisters should say the psalter, illiterate sisters five hundred pater nosters].”49 These specifications regarding the prayers of the laysisters help explain why the laysisters must be taught enough to say their prayers. They are also expected to be praying in Latin, even if only the one prayer repeatedly.
Performance of the liturgy and the literacy entailed are briefly at issue in the chapters on punishments. Not paying attention during the hours, laughing in choir, being absent for a silly reason, and singing anything other than what is intended are all considered a medium fault. Not bringing the book with the appropriate reading to collation and, more interestingly, reading or singing badly are considered light faults, although the Constitutions specify that the offending sister is not to be publicly humiliated for her mistake immediately.50 The Constitutions reveal no further information concerning the time of day when learning or studying liturgical texts should occur, nor about appropriate reading or learning material aside from the Office.
In her study, Julie Ann Smith notes that the 1259 Constitutions introduce a clause not found in the earlier statutes. She interprets the passage as a restriction on the women’s reading material, stipulating that “no community was to be given books for reading or transcribing without permission of the Master General or provincial prior.”51 The clause she cites, however, is the last sentence in the section on receiving new houses and therefore in the entire Constitutions. It reads “nulli eciam libellus iste tradatur ad transcribendum uel uidendum sine licencia magistri uel prioris prouincialis [this book is to be given to no one for transcribing or viewing without permission of the Master General or the provincial prior].”52 The clause refers to one book alone, “this book,” that is, the book of the Constitutions, which is not to be circulated without the permission of male superiors. The passage therefore does not regulate the reading material of Dominican nuns, but rather attempts to restrict the affiliation of new convents.
Smith is correct in noting that only one passage regarding learning is added to the 1259 Constitutions, although the particular passage she chooses to focus upon is puzzling. The chapter on novices in the Montargis Constitutions includes the injunction that sisters should diligently study the psalter and the Office. This earlier version lacks the different regulations for laysisters and the mention of the workroom, which first appear in the 1259 Constitutions.53 Otherwise, the final Constitutions are primarily interesting for their deletions, which Smith does not address.
Namely, both the San Sisto Rule for the Magdalenes and the Constitutions for Montargis contain regulations concerning learning in the chapter on work. In the Montargis statutes, we read that “sorores postquam officium ecclesiasticum didicerint diligenter, addiscere poterunt tantum ut quod legitur intelligant, ut maiorem habeant devotionem [after they have diligently learned the Office of the church, sisters will be able to learn enough that they understand what is read, so that they may have greater devotion].”54 No mention is made of grammar, exercises, language learning, or theological texts, so the content of this instruction remains vague. Nevertheless, the tantum limits the extent as well as the purpose of this further learning.
The Rule for the Magdalenes provided more thorough stipulations, which not only dictated the content and purpose of the convent education but also restricted who qualified to benefit from it.
Iuniores discant legere et cantare, ut divinum officium valeant exercere; grammaticalia vero et auctores discere non oportet. Sorores que viginti quatuor annos transcenderunt, si nesciunt psalterium, de novo non discant. Que viginti annos compleverunt et nichil adhuc de cantu vel musica didicerunt, etiamsi sciant psalterium, de cetero non addiscant.55
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