to prove Miss Allen’s theory, and to dissipate the objections which he himself has felt bound to raise and which, as he fully realises, may arise simply from his own ignorance of the religious literature of the age. But even should it prove impossible finally to identify the three sisters of the Rule with the three devotees of Kilburn, the value of Miss Allen’s article will hardly be diminished. For that value lies above all in the way in which Miss Allen has linked up the Ancren Riwle with the religious movements of the twelfth century, and shown it as the work of a man living at a time of many strong religious influences, sensitive to all, but not giving the zeal of a partizan to any.[1]
Attention must also be called to the theory of authorship propounded by Dr. Joseph Hall in the model edition of some pages of the Rule which forms a part of his quite invaluable Selections from Early Middle English. Dr. Hall thinks that a good case might be made out for St. Gilbert of Sempringham (1089–1189), who was, as he says, “famous as the greatest director of pious women in England.”[2] When St. Gilbert died, his order of Gilbertines numbered fifteen hundred women. But is this a reason for attributing to him the Ancren Riwle? The anchoresses for whom the Ancren Riwle was written were the chief care of the writer (“mine leoue sustren, wummen me leouest”[3]) although he was of course acquainted with other devout women (“ancren þet ich iknowe”[4]). They belong to no order, and have been troubled with questions on that account. The writer of the Rule sees no reason why they should belong to any order, and with some indignation tells them to reply to these unwise and foolish[5] questioners that their religion and order is that of St. James, “pure religion and undefiled … is … to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
Now I would place no bounds to the charity of a saint, and I am prepared to believe (if evidence is forthcoming) that St. Gilbert spared time from his many and heavy duties to write for three anchoresses, who did not even belong to his order, this laborious work (“God knows, I would rather set out on a pilgrimage to Rome than begin to do it again”[6]). The writer of the Rule was obviously a saintly man. But let us not, in the absence of evidence, diminish
