She insisted, fifthly, that she would rise again with a human body of female sex before the day of the final Resurrection, and would ascend into heaven in the sight of her disciples.

Sixthly, that as Christ had left S. Peter as His vicar on earth to rule His Church, so she also left as her vicar on earth Mayfreda of the Umiliate.

Seventhly, she asserted that this Mayfreda, in imitation of S. Peter, would celebrate Mass at the Sepulchre of the Holy Spirit Incarnate, and that she would solemnly repeat the same Mass in the Metropolitan Church of Milan and in Rome.

Eighthly, she asserted that Mayfreda should be a true Papessa, endowed with the power of the Pope himself, and that even as the Pope and the Papacy would give way to and be abolished by this Papessa, so would be baptized Jews, Saracens and other peoples who were without the Roman Church.

Ninthly, to the Four Gospels would succeed four new Gospels that Guglielmina would order to be written.

Tenthly, that as Christ after the Resurrection permitted Himself to be seen by His disciples, so would she be seen by hers.

Eleventhly, she ordained that all should visit the Monastery of Chiaravalle, where she would be buried, and that all would thus gain indulgences equal to those to be won by going to Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulchre. She asserted that pilgrims would come to visit her sepulchre from all parts of the world.

Finally, she proclaimed that to all her disciples persecution and death would come, even as they came to the Apostles of Christ, and that one of these, like Judas, would betray them into the hands of the Inquisition.

Such was the farrago of nonsense that distinguished this thirteenth-century feminist. It is certainly more blasphemous than many of the claims put forward to-day in the twentieth century, but not inherently more absurd.

Then as now there were many who took these things for good sense, who believed in them and were ready to go to the stake for the sake of such things. Then as now the good sense of the world finds itself amused by them, but incapable of considering them seriously.

The most extraordinary thing about the matter of Guglielmina is that she was not interfered with. She died in 1281, and was buried, as she had foretold, in the Monastery of Chiaravalle, though she was first interred. at S. Pietro all' Orto. Nor was this interment a secret business, rather it was very honourable. One of the monks spoke her Panegyric, praised her holy life, and attributed miracles or something like them to her. Lamps and tapers were burnt about her tomb. Three times in the year her feast was celebrated by her devotees at the monastery, and the common people called her Saint.

Perhaps during her lifetime her blasphemous assertions founded only a secret cult; perhaps only her good deeds and not her heresies were known abroad; however it may be, she died unmolested and had honourable sepulture at Chiaravalle. It was not till the year 1300, nineteen years after her death, that the Church began to notice this new sect. It was then at once completely stamped out.

During these years Mayfreda had celebrated blasphemous Masses in her house, her followers were used to kiss her hand and to receive from her a ridiculous benediction. But this could not go on for ever. In the year 1300 the Church seems to have discovered the sect. Guglielmina's bones were taken up and burned, her selpulchre was destroyed, and Andrea Saramita and the Umiliata Mayfreda were condemned and burned also. It is an amazing story. One wonders, after all, whether it can be true. Were these people really guilty of this horrible and monstrous impiety, or were they the victims of vulgar gossip or worse?

Muratori certainly accepts the whole story as absolutely genuine, and his opinion is not lightly to be questioned. And since we too must accept it, it might seem that even the most anticlerical among us will be compelled to think of such a man as S. Peter Martyr, of such an institution as the Inquisition, as necessary to the sanity of the world, and after all on the side of sweetness and light.

Chiaravalle, with its memories of S. Bernard and its strange connection with Guglielmina, was suppressed in 1797. The church as we see it is nobly picturesque and beautiful, but is falling into decay. Little is to be seen within: the tomb of Archbishop Ottone Visconti, who died here, and little beside. As a piece of architecture the church is interesting because it has a central tower. What I think is, in its own way, quite as interesting, however, is the stemma or coat of the monastery, a relief of which may still be seen on the door. It is a stork which bears in its beak a pastoral staff. For Roberto Rusca tells us that the monks of Chiaravalle assumed the stork for their stemma because "this pious bird seeing its parents old and featherless, took them into its own nest, brought them food and stripped. itself to cover their nakedness. And so monks shall use this bird for a sign that they are to be charitable to the poor and afflicted." However that may be, we know that the whole territory of Rovegnano was covered by numerous colonies of storks, and must have been exceedingly liable to floods before the monks drained it. One misses them there to-day, the passing of their white figures, their unhurried footsteps, their friendly lights, their soothing and consolatory chants, their humanity and their confirmation to us of Europe. Here in Chiaravalle there is only emptiness, and what S. Bernard built remembers him now no more.

AT

CHAPTER VII

THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA

T Chiaravalle, as we have seen, we have, though in ruin and decay, an abbey of the Cistercian Order, founded by S. Bernard himself: it is something quite different we find at the Certosa, the Certosa of Pavia. Here we have a Carthusian priory, the most sumptuous in the world, founded not by a saint but by a tyrant, and not for joy but in expiation of a monstrous crime.

It is true that the Carthusian Order, like the Cistercian, was a reform of the Benedictines, and that Robert, Cluniac Abbot of Molesme, who had founded the Cistercians, may be said to have launched the Carthusians and that while he was still at Molesme. For it seems that S. Bruno, born at Cologne in 1030, and educated at the famous episcopal school of Rheims, was on account of his austerities much persecuted by his Bishop, so that he determined to flee the world, and to this end sought out S. Robert of Molesme, who sent him to S. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, who in 1086 led him and his six companions to a desolate spot on the Alps, more than 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. Here S. Bruno built an oratory, and set about it seven tiny huts, in which he dwelt with his companions. Thus was founded the Grande Chartreuse and the Carthusian Order, an Order of hermits who dwelt together and ate in common. These early Carthusians would seem to have followed the rule of S. Benedict, only they observed a