WHITBY
On the north-east coast of Yorkshire, in England, the town of Whitby serves as a fishing-port, mainly for herring-trawlers, and as market-town for the farms in nearby Eskdale. In neither capacity has it other than local importance. But there was a time, in the seventh century, when it mattered greatly to the wider world. This was when the famous Abbey of Whitby was founded by St Hilda in 657, who served as its Superior until her death in 680. Ruins of a later date still stand on a cliff at the edge of town, overlooking the North Sea; and they are visited sometimes by tourists, willing to pay tribute, simply by their presence, to the meaning of the site and its foundress.
In church history, the Abbey is known (at least, to those interested in such things) as site of the Synod of Whitby, in 664, which was convened to settle the date of Easter, and did so successfully. But the choice of location is proof of the Abbey’s fame and of the high esteem in which Hilda was held, as a church leader. Clearly, she had a very strong personality; and given the social climate of the time, that is not surprising in someone of direct descent from the Northumbrian royal line. But her distinction was far more than merely a matter of lineage. She had a triple reputation for holiness, for leadership, and for originality.
That she was holy is everywhere attested to by those who knew her. Only a born leader could found an Abbey, as she did, could manage it with great practical sagacity, and could wield an influence on church affairs that extended nation-wide. But the originality of her vision is extraordinary, in the light of its context.
Women in the Roman Catholic Church, at all times, have mostly been second-class citizens. Many a one, as a religious, has attained sainthood. Some have won arguments with bishops and even with popes. A few used to be major landowners, with full powers of decision-making over their estates (a privilege not enjoyed by laywomen, who had no legal property rights whatever). And one or two actually had authority over men: these were the Abbesses in charge of double monasteries — monasteries, that is, with two buildings, one for monks and the other for nuns, separate in habitation but sharing the same vocation and bound by the same Rule. In these double monasteries, the Superior was always the senior nun, not the senior monk; and she governed the community as a whole, not only in the practice of its religion, but also in the conduct of its business affairs. This ran counter to patriarchal traditions, both within the Church and in the secular world. It is a rare early example of gender equality such as would win the approval of a modern feminist.
Double monasteries were never common. In the high Middle Ages, there were several in England, all belonging to the Gilbertine Order, founded in the twelfth century by St Gilbert of Sempringham, and thriving until the Dissolution of the English monasteries in the sixteenth century. There was one in France, at Fontevrault, which lasted until the abolition of monastic Orders during the French Revolution. There was one in Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century; but it was atypical, in that it had a male Superior and was Protestant. Hilda’s Abbey, at Whitby, was unique in its time.
Not much is known about the Abbey and life in it, beyond what is recorded in Bede’s chronicle of the English Church, written in the eighth century. But Hilda left her mark on history, by the sheer force of her personality: evidently she was both a devout contemplative and a compelling activist, of disciplined intellect and wide learning; in addition, she was a wise and caring nurse of souls.
This last and endearing trait shines through one of her most lasting legacies. She was the friend and patroness of Caedmon, the first and foremost of the Anglo-Saxon Christian poets. Their story does credit to them both.
Caedmon was a ploughman engaged by Whitby Abbey as a lay labourer. A vision came to him in a dream, bidding him answer a call to write poems in praise of God. He spoke of this to Hilda, with a view to perhaps becoming a monk and serving his vocation in the cloister. She evidently interpreted his vision as a command to be obeyed by her as well as by him, and enrolled him in the men’s novitiate — she was probably in part moved to do so by perceiving the quality of his gift. In the years that followed, she took him under her wing and constantly encouraged his talent, to the end of their days; he is believed to have died in 680, as did she.
Whitby Abbey, therefore, lays claim to our regard for two reasons: it was the pioneering locus of female emancipation in the Church, thanks to Hilda (an emancipation by no means yet fulfilled); and it was the birthplace of a fine tradition of English religious verse, thanks to Caedmon (a tradition that later embraced, when Anglo-Saxon evolved into modern English, the rich genius of Langland and Donne, Herbert and Traherne, Rossetti and Hopkins, and Eliot).
The buildings they lived and prayed in fell victim, in the ninth century, to the pillaging raids of the pagan Danes. But the faith they served survived. And in the eleventh century, on the same site, a new monastery was built, this time for monks only — the idea of a double monastery had to wait until the twelfth century, when it was revived in France, at Fontevrault, and in England, at Sempringham, south from Whitby in the neighbouring country of Lincolnshire. Four hundred years later, all the English monasteries were suppressed, and their buildings fell into ruin. The ruins remain, for future generations, as lasting reminder of an age of faith, long abandoned. The culture that produced them may well founder, some day, in a world much bent on self-destruction. But the cliffs will still stand where geology put them, millennia ago. And the sea, at their foot, will still ebb and flow, in their own version of history, indifferent to the men and women who once dwelt there, on that coast, and lifted up their hearts to heaven in poetry and prayer.
