Missives
Caitlin Conaway

 

Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall
August 9, 1114
To John Godwinson, Godwinson Hall, Cornwall

Dearest John,

Sic transit gloria mundi!

     That was copied from Brother Anselm’s book. He said that my
handwriting is beautiful, but why would I want to start a letter
home with “so passes the glory of the world”? They have such a
deficit of workers in the Scriptorium that they cannot spare anyone
to teach me Latin. They even have me copying; me, a boy of twelve!
Thank God I already know how to make letters, even if the meaning of
Latin words is a mystery. For my literacy I thank your father daily
in my prayers.
    You would laugh to see my head (newly tonsured, an odd
feeling) peeping out of a novice’s white hood, surrounded by
mountains of vellum. I look like a cranberry on a snow drift.
Clairveaux is beautiful but I am afraid that you will not
like it. It is nothing like home. I have never seen so much paper in
my life; there are books everywhere, thrilling for one who has only
seen your father’s Bible and the church’s Book of Saints. It is
quite dark here, especially in the Scriptorium where there is not
even a candle for fear of a fire. Clairveaux is also silent.
They gave me a last name today. The clerk asked me my name to
write in his big book and I told him Rufus. He asked what my last
name was and I said I didn’t have one. You have to have one, he
said. So I told him I was raised in Peyton with the Godwinson
family, and I am now Rufus Peyton. I would rather have been Rufus
Godwinson, because it sounds regal, but it is not my choice I
suppose.
    How is Godwinson Hall? Are your mother and father well? Are
Yolande, Beatrice, Catherine and Young Thomas? Well, that is a
stupid question, even from me. A better one: is he better or worse?
Send him (and everyone else, of course) my love and prayers and if
he is worse, please do not lose sleep caring for him. But it is not
my place to order you to do something or not do something,
especially not now, as I am supposed to be one of God’s humblest
creatures.
    Soon after you left me here they took the beautiful cloak you
gave me, also my knife, saying that they were too rich for
Cisterians who may own nothing. Then they shaved the top of my head.
It was cold but the brothers were smiling so broadly that I did not
put up the hood of my robe for fear of offending them. I do not know
all the rules here but I do not think I have broken any yet.
One fall, one winter, a spring until I see you again. That is
ten months-- how many days? Are you looking forward to becoming a
monk too or are you thinking ‘darkness and silence’ and shuddering
at the idea? The lord’s son and the orphan, and we’re going to live
our lives together. God works in mysterious ways. I cannot say that
I am unhappy with my future here.
Tonight’s Vespers, Compline and then the Great Silence: that
is all that is left in my first week as a monk. I am already
grateful and I know I will be happy here with the paper and stone
and you.

Your own,
Rufus Peyton
-------------------------------------
Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall
April 24, 1117
Brother John Godwinson, London

Dearest John,

     As you can see from these margins, my status has changed: I
am now an illuminator as well as a copyist! Eleven days ago Brother
Lanfranc decided that he was old enough and I was skilled enough to
warrant an apprenticeship. My world has suddenly widened from black
letters on tan squares to innumerable colors and shapes and it is
beautiful. Praised be Our Lord Jesus for the wonders of this world!
I am even creating my own scenes; at the left you see Saint Jerome
writing, at right you see my sad attempts at portraiture. Maybe if I
had your face to work from it would be better, but I hardly know
what either of us look like anymore.
    I am writing from the infirmary, but do not worry. In Matins
this morning I was listening to one of Brother Pepin’s detailed
lectures on the virgin martyrs when I began to feel dizzy, and soon
fell gasping out of my chair. It was nothing, really, just the
combined shock of a cold spring, a meager diet and late hours in the
Scriptorium, but it was enough for them to send me here and feed me
meat. This is the first time I have eaten meat in almost three years
and it is as delicious as I remembered. As I ate, the brother in the
bed next to mine winked at me and confided that he sometimes feigns
illness for a bite of cow. I thought it was a confession so I
started to absolve him of the sin and he laughed and told me to save
my prayers. I can hardly believe that such things exist within a
monastery, but exist they do. Sometimes I wonder why men like
Brother Pepin joined the monastery if they are so obsessed with
women, or why Brother Thomas joined if he loves beef ribs above the
Benedictine Rule.
    If you see any of the root you purchased on your last trip,
please buy a few large pieces. Whatever kind you bought last time
makes a richer yellow than I have ever seen. Also, if you have
enough money, please get a few sheaves of low-rate parchment for
practice. The type you bought three months ago would be fine, if you
can get it. And please keep me updated on the latest news of your
travels. Do they know your face in London yet?
This may sound ridiculous or even impious, or prying or
vulgar, but I have heard awful things about London and stories of
the monks who live there. Goliards, they call them, false monks:
they wear the habit but revel in the most sinful manner at taverns
and brothels. Succubi abound in these wicked cities. Certainly this
would not apply to you, as the paragon of dignity, but my years of
training supersede my common sense and I blushingly remind you to
recite a Procul Recedant Somnia every night.
How is the Hall and everyone in it? How are the sheep?

Your own,
Brother Rufus
-------------------------------------
Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall
October 13, 1118
To Brother John Godwinson, London

Dearest John--

    So the Compline Hymn is no match for the succubi of London. I
have not been here long enough to get you out of this mess. I have
no seniority outside of the Scriptorium and you should know I don’t
have the audacity to defend you before Abbot William when you have
been accused of this sort of crime. How would I defend you beyond
repeating the lame excuse that you are my friend? Our friendship is
enough to preserve my faith in your basic goodness but that is all.
I have not seen any women since Godwinson Hall except for
ancient nuns so perhaps I have no perspective, but how could you
even think of it? Have you learned nothing from you father’s
example? Do you want to bring illegitimates like Yolande and
Beatrice into the world when there is no kind father Godwinson to
take care of them? I think better of you than this so I conclude, I
must believe, that this was her devilish temptation and not your own
will.
    Sending the baby to the Hall sounds like the best idea, weak
as it is you cannot care for it, nor would it be proper to. I know
from experience that they are used to abandoned children at your
home.
    I wonder that you do not curse and despise the evil mother as
much as I do now. To leave a child outright-- it strinkes too close
for me to write about clearly. If you deny her any place in your
heart and you can return to the abbey with a middling penance and a
minor stigma. Things like this have happened before. Please, John,
by all the ties that bind us and the place I hold in your heart,
aside this woman’s and above it, do what you promised to: entrust
the child to the Godwinsons and return to the Abbey.

Awaiting your reply,
your own Rufus
-------------------------------------
Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall
May 2, 1121
Brother John, Godwinson Hall, Cornwall

Dearest John,

    All of Clairveaux is praying for your brother. May
all Our Lady’s blessings attend his soul in Heaven. Though we have
known of his impending death for these many years, it still saddens
us all. He was unflinching in the face of pain, an example to us
all. But surely you were not serious when you said you expect to
stay at Godwinson Hall after the funeral? Beatrice’s husband is a
worthy man, he would manage the Hall well. It was not her fault that
your bastard infant died, it was sickly and with no mother it had no
chance. Through all that has happened you are still a monk. Your
father did not send you to Clairveaux simply because you were a
younger son. It is only my opinion but I believe that he saw that
there was much of himself in you. There are lessons here for you to
learn!

John, do you care nothing for permanence? Why is it such hell
for you to stay still? Your six years here must seem like an
eternity to you, although you have been physically in Clairveaux for
only half that time. Once you spent nearly eleven months here, three
hundred and nineteen days by my count, what is it to stay three
hundred nineteen days in one place? That’s nothing. If I finish a
Bible in eleven months I think my progress rapid. Why is it so hard
for you to spend even a year here? Is it the darkness? What is there
to fear from darkness and silence and silent men among holy texts?
What is there to fear from the peace of a monastery? You could be a
teacher or an administrator, what did you have against those jobs
when you tried them? There must be something to keep you here. It is
one of Saint Benedict’s Rules: Once you have entered a monastic
order, you are there until you die.
    With Old, and now Young Thomas dead I doubt that there
is anyone on this earth who loves you more than I do, so believe my
sincerity when I beg you to stay at Clairveaux. For Saint Benedict’s
rules, for the peace of the monastery, for your soul and my peace.
Ah, there it is, the true selfish reason among all the pious
ones. In the abbey I have my parchment, my inks, my imagination, a
sublime routine. That I have lived contented in the Scriptorium for
nearly seven years confirms that I love these things, but even I
cannot live on them alone. You wouldn’t think that of me, would you?
I’ve never felt trapped at Clairveaux before. But with the threat of
your departure I can’t even write in peace, it doesn’t seem worth it
if you leave.
    It’s not even your physical presence that matters so much.
I’ve learned to do without that. It’s the idea that we’re both
brothers at Clairveaux. Again, simple selfishness! Selfish that I
would deprive you of your peace to maintain my peace, selfish that I
would jail you here to sometimes hear your laugh! Selfish and silly
to think that our Cisterian robes make you anything more than my
adopted brother and friend.
    I mourn your father’s incessant lechery. I know how much it
cost your family and shackled you from birth. I know what it is to
have a prostitute for a mother, and that is to have no mother at
all. I cannot put myself in your shoes, you who are nothing like me,
nothing at all . . .  As the son of some whore and some peasant, I
don’t share a single drop of blood with you-- so how can I be in any
position to order you to do anything, no matter what emotions cloud
my mind like an infernal vision and make me forget myself! Sir John
Godwinson, how can I stop you from doing whatever you want?

your own
Rufus

 

 

Copyright © 2002 Caitlin Conaway
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