A Beautiful Journey of Identity and Faith

Chronicles of an Unwilling Abbess: Episode 2

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This is the second instalment in the miniseries, Chronicles of an Unwilling Abbess. It was billed as a three-parter, but I think it will end up being a six-parter.

In the first instalment (linked below), Eadgifu fell madly in love with her childhood sweetheart Eadric, but was denied marriage to him by her father. He was determined to send her from her Northumbrian home to a Parisian abbey to learn the craft of the holy life, so that she could return and run the abbey he patronised.

In this second instalment, we meet her in Paris, where she is settling into her new life.

A Path Unchosen

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It took a while to become accustomed to daily life in Paris.

Upon my arrival, I was shocked to find that the abbey was no more than a pitiful collection of ramshackle earthen buildings centred around a tiny church. That, at least, was built of stone, but the roof leaked incessantly, icy plops of water an unwelcome guest at many a gathering.

The women there were nobles, princesses, queens, even! Why were they living in such poverty? So far from anything I had experienced in my eighteen years, I could not wrap my head around why these women had chosen such a life. They could have ruled vast kingdoms, been dripping in jewels, the envy of every woman for miles. And yet they were here, spending their days demeaned to farm work, cooking, and prayers.

I saw myself as different to them all. I maintained that this dishonour had been forced upon me; I was not complicit in it, and I counted down the days until I could return to the splendour of my father’s estate.  

Now, of course, I know this attitude to have been one of such ugly pride that I don’t quite know why they didn’t send me back immediately upon arrival.

And yet, sitting here now, I am so, so glad that Abbess Clotilde welcomed me into her community. For my life would not have become what it was to be without her sharp insight, her ability to see through all the arrogance that I had to work through. She knew, in her great wisdom, that this rough stone could be worked into something beautiful, with time and effort as all sculptures need. And it was her gentle hands that moulded me in those early years.

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After three weeks, I was summoned.

My heart was in my throat as I knocked on the door.

“My lady abbess, you asked to speak to me?”

Fingers holding the edges of a well-worn manuscript, she looked up at me under her lashes. Though I had only ever seen kindness, there was something formidable about her. She had a hardness, a strength that I couldn’t quite place yet was always there behind her smile. Later, I would witness her battle kings and bishops in the theological wars that raged across kingdoms, and would understand that her steeliness, though in part nature, had been nurtured from her earliest days as a princess at the Northumbrian court. She had had to deal with unimaginable hardship before I had even taken my first breath.

A smile flashed across her face as she tapped a cushion beside her. “Please, join me by the fire.” I did as she asked. “Tell me, how have you been getting on?”