This morning, I happened to turn on Dave Fanning-as-Tubridy on Radio 1 only to hear Esther Rantzen being interviewed (click on Tuesday’s show here to listen). That’s Life was one of my favourite TV programs as kid, and an excuse for being allowed to stay up a bit later on a Sunday school night. Always a consummate interviewer, she was an equally engaging interviewee. Straining to hear above the noise of our wheezing kettle boiling, I could have sworn I heard her mention nuns. An odd coincidence, given that myself and the other Anti-Roomers were only talking about this very subject last night. The reason? This article in The New York Times about Beguinages (love that word), which have been operating in Europe since after The Crusades.
According to the NYT:
“Unlike sisterhoods that required a life spent apart from society under vows of chastity, these Catholic women looked for holiness outside monastic norms. Although they lived and prayed together within an enclave, partly as a form of mutual protection — some historians believe they banded together after losing their men to the Crusades, which left behind mainly criminals and louts — beguines were not confined to the cloister. Many ministered to the poor and sick outside their walls. Lifelong celibacy was not required either. They could leave the order and marry (but not return).”
Rantzen mused about how she might once have considered becoming a nun, and that living in a convent can lead to a long life. She cited the example of a Convent graveyard in Galway where the graves of all the Sisters revealed that they had lived until their late 90s. This, according to Esther, was down to “lots of fresh air, a plain diet, a life of routine and no sex.”
The Beguinages and their model of a female only community seems to offered more than the implied life of service under the aegis of the Catholic Church. They offered refuge, options, peace, independence even. If the set-up in Black Narcissus had been a bit more like this, perhaps Sister Clodagh wouldn’t have lost the plot. Personally? I think the scarlet lipstick pushed her over the edge – literally.
Penny Century
Leigh
Ruby
Honoria
Long life, according to Esther, was down to “lots of fresh air, a plain diet, a life of routine and no sex.” Jeepers! I need to sort my life out.
Me too, Sister. Did you know there are tons of blogs by Catholic nuns?
I did not!! That’s amazing. I just have nuns in my head as a certain type of character. I don’t know why. A friend of mine is an ex-nun who was literally a prisoner in the convent for many years, despite deciding almost as soon as she joined that the convent wasn’t for her and trying her best to get out. The mother superior intercepted all her letters.
I don’t think the celibacy was as important as not having children in extending their lifespans. So many women died in childbirth or had complications.
Absolutely. My mum’s godmother had 17 (living) children, various miscarriages and died at 61 of no specific health problem. I’ve always thought it was just sheer exhaustion from pushing all those babies out into the world…
Slightly OT, but back in the ’40s, my great-aunt, who had already had about 8 kids, was told by the doctor that she wouldn’t survive having another baby. It being, well, Ireland in the ’40s, she went to her priest (who was also a relative) for advice and was told it was her duty to (a) “submit to her husband” and (b) have more kids (no evil furrin contraception, not that I can imagine that was easy to get hold of in Meath in 1944). Well, she did, and she died. Good old holy Catholic Ireland! And what a depressing state her marriage must have been in, that she either didn’t discuss it with her husband or she did and he didn’t care.