The Greenest Branch

by P K Adams

  “I have absolute faith in Abbot Kuno,” my father assured her. “This place is going to thrive again, and our daughter will fulfill her vocation meaningfully.”

  My mother did not respond. In her mind’s eye, she saw once again the cluster of plain buildings huddled in a corner of the abbey, and wondered if, even though they had done their duty by the Church, the same could be said of their duty by their child.

  4

  November 1115

  We stood in semi-darkness, illuminated only by the taper in Sister Adelheid’s hand and a shaft of light coming from a door across the small courtyard. The sisters motioned for me to follow, and we entered a rectangular chamber with a solitary window. On the far wall, a large cross hung above a wooden altar, bare save for a breviary in a gilded binding, the only expensive object in the otherwise austere space. The furnishings consisted of three rows of plain pine benches separated by a narrow aisle, and a corner table with a pair of prayer books on it. The chamber was lit by tallow candles in bronze holders in each corner. It was barely warmer than the outside.

  I thought the chapel empty until I noticed a silhouette on the ground, barefoot and clad in a sackcloth robe, lying with outstretched arms at the foot of the altar. The two anchoresses stood in reverent silence until Jutta von Sponheim rose, bowed before the cross, and turned to us. She was older than her companions—perhaps twenty-three—and much thinner. In fact, her habit seemed too large for her bony frame and hung loosely from her slight shoulders. Her features were delicate; she had a shapely nose, large dark eyes, and a full mouth, and would have been beautiful but for the unhealthy pallor of her complexion and her sunken cheeks. But her eyes shone with an intensity that rivaled the light of the candles. I was mesmerized by this woman and her severe yet soulful aspect.

  My fascination only increased when Jutta spoke in a voice that had an unexpectedly deep and rich quality, like a finely tuned musical instrument. “We have been waiting for you and prayed for your safe arrival.”

  With a surge of childish eagerness, I wanted to kiss the woman I had heard so much about, but Jutta made no move, and I remained in place. I recalled my mother’s advice to observe and learn the customs of my new surroundings. “I look forward to joining your convent,” I said. Then I looked around. “Where is your study?”

  “This chapel serves as a place for prayer, contemplation, and learning. We do not need much room.”

  This was not what I had expected, but my pulse quickened nevertheless. “And what do you learn about?” I thought back on the oblation ceremony, the chants that had stirred me, and how much more thrilling it would have been had I been able to understand more of the Latin.

  “We read Scriptures and copy passages to ponder them more deeply. The sisters also take turns playing the psaltery and singing holy songs for our souls’ fortification.”

  “My mother has a psaltery that used to belong to my grandmother, and she plays it for us sometimes.” I felt a sudden pang of homesickness, realizing that I would never hear that music again. “Can I learn to play too?”

  A faint shadow of a smile crossed Jutta’s face, but it failed to dispel its suffering aspect. “You will when the time comes, but now let us give thanks to God for your arrival among us.” She motioned to the altar, and all of us knelt, Jutta in the front and I behind her, with Adelheid and Juliana on either side. Although I had heard that both women were nobly born—Juliana came from a Thuringian family at least as old and distinguished as the House of Sponheim—I sensed the deference they accorded Jutta as their magistra, and I imitated them. I folded my hands and bowed my head, and for a few moments I prayed fervently, excited by the novelty and the possibilities that lay ahead.

  But it was not long before my knees started to hurt, and I felt the chill of the beaten-earth floor creeping up my thighs. At Bermersheim we had prie-dieux, but here there were none. I held the position for as long as I could, then my bottom sank slowly until I was sitting on my heels, hoping the folds of my robe would hide the offense. Relieved of the discomfort, I looked right and left out of the corners of my eyes, but the two sisters were so engrossed in their prayers that they were quite oblivious to the world. Jutta was in a similar state, judging by the low but constant murmur that caused her back to tremble slightly.

  This went on for some time, and my gaze began to wander again. How different this chapel was from the one at Bermersheim. The stone building erected by my great-grandfather boasted pews lined with soft cushions, and wood-carved statues of saints he had commissioned —according to family lore—as a gesture of support for Pope Gregorius during his struggle against the old emperor and the wealthy bishops who had stood in the way of Libertas ecclesiae. I did not know what exactly the term meant, but I liked the clean, elegant sound of it.

  Just when my legs were getting stiff again, Jutta rose and the two sisters followed nimbly. I, though much younger, found out just how difficult it was to quickly stretch limbs unaccustomed to such lengthy devotions, and fell back to the floor with a cry of pain.

  Adelheid helped me to my feet. “Are you unwell?”

  “I am fine, Sister.” But the strain of the long day was beginning to take its toll, and I swayed on my feet.

  “You should rest now, child,” Jutta said. “The sisters will take you to the dorter.”

  “Are you not coming with us?” I asked from the threshold.

  “I will stay a little longer to finish my prayers,” Jutta replied, turning to the altar once more.

  The dorter occupied the only other building within the convent. It was also a single chamber, with a row of straw pallets placed directly on the floor, under the windows that looked onto the smaller of the abbey’s two courtyards. A table and a chest stood against the opposite wall. The only decoration was a simple cross above the door.

  I was unsure which pallet to take because there were only three.

  “Sister Juliana and I use the two closest to the door,” Adelheid explained, seeing my confusion. She had a rosy face, smiling eyes, and a liveliness about her movements that Juliana, quiet and grave, seemed to lack. She was also clearly in awe of the magistra, for she added, with a mix of admiration and regret, “Sister Jutta prefers to sleep directly on the ground.”

  I eyed the uninviting hardness of the dirt floor. “Does it not hurt her back?”

  Adelheid’s face grew serious. “This is what all of us aspire to because true piety is the ability to suffer pain and discomfort like our Lord did.”

  What a strange idea, I thought, to try to please God by making oneself cold and miserable. I wanted to ask about it, but Adelheid was already pointing to a new-looking pallet at the far end of the room. “Father Abbot sent this one for you, if you wish to use it.”

  If I wished to use it? A wave of weariness swept over me. Sleep, ideally on something other than a hard floor, was all I wanted right then. I took off my robe, and in my linen shift, slipped under the thin blanket. Nestling there, I asked sleepily, “So why do you use a pallet, Sister?”

  “I truly wanted to follow her example when I first joined, and I did sleep on the floor for a few days, but then I caught a terrible chill of the chest.” Adelheid sighed. “I spent weeks in the infirmary, and Brother Wigbert warned me that my constitution was too weak for it.” Her voice was tinged with regret again.

  I stifled a yawn. “I am sorry.”

  “I have refused to use a blanket, however, even in winter,” Adelheid added proudly. “God had a reason in making me unable to sleep on the floor, though I can always . . .”

  But I was already drifting off to sleep, the candlelight-illuminated swirls of incense I had seen in the church dancing and then extinguishing themselves under my eyelids.

  I was awakened by a shake of the arm and opened my eyes to find Adelheid’s face hovering over me. It was still dark, the only light coming from the candle she was holding. For a few moments, I struggled t
o remember where I was.

  “Wake up. The matins bell has sounded.”

  “What?” The haze of sleep was slow to dissolve, but I was beginning to recall the events of the previous day. I had arrived at the enclosure after the oblation ceremony, and after praying in the chapel, fell soundly asleep only to be roused in what seemed like the middle of the night.

  “Matins. The midnight office,” Adelheid explained. “Put on your robe and follow us.” She held out the folded garment.

  I slipped the robe on, and the three of us walked to the chapel, dimmer now in the light of only the altar candles. Jutta was there already—or perhaps still—praying as she waited for us. Adelheid took the breviaries from the table, handed one to Juliana, and made a motion to share the other with me. Blinking, I focused on its cover until I made out the title: Officium Divinum. I had never prayed from a real breviary before—my family possessed only a small Book of Hours—and was unsure how to proceed.

  Just then, a faint sound of chanting from the church floated in through the window. Adelheid opened the book on a page with the heading Matins, and they intoned Venite exultemus Domino, the invitatory psalm, in unison with the monks across the courtyard. For a while, I did my best to follow the hymns, lessons, and responses of the lengthy office, but the flickering lights and the monotonous cadence of the recitation made me drowsy. I kept drifting off to sleep, but for no more than a few moments at a time because the discomfort of kneeling made my legs ache and kept jolting me back into consciousness.

  When the office ended, we silently filed back to the dorter, and I promptly went back to sleep again. The same process was repeated just before dawn with the service of lauds, and after daybreak with prime. And although I enjoyed the beautiful canticles, I was exhausted from the interrupted sleep by the time the sun rose over the abbey wall.

  Days followed one another, turning into weeks, then months. On some mornings, as I struggled to clear my head from the vapors of sleep, I thought about my mother and how she would let us stay in bed until the sun was high above the forest. I felt such longing for home then that I would imagine myself running out of the enclosure, through the abbey gate, and down to the town to find someone travelling in the direction of Bermersheim to take me there.

  My new life was not what I had thought it would be. The gray earth of the tiny courtyard, the dull wood of the buildings, and the many hours of silence made me long for the colors of the world, even the wintry ones, and its vivid sounds. Amid the unnerving stillness of my existence, I even missed the games my sisters had sometimes persuaded me to play with them.

  The study of the Scriptures and the Latin lessons with Jutta were the few bright spots in my days. They commenced when it became apparent that my reading skills, while sufficient for my mother’s gardening book, were inadequate for a deeper understanding of biblical passages. Twice a week after the midmorning service of terce, the usual monastic study time, Jutta sat with me at the table with a copy of Regula Benedicti to improve my Latin and enlighten me on the formal aspects of life in the Benedictine order.

  “All of our daily activities are prescribed by The Rule,” she explained on the first day of the instruction, “written by our order’s founder, the Blessed Benedict of Norcia, in the year 530.”

  I made a calculation in my head—that was nearly six centuries ago! At first I found it hard to fathom that life had existed at such a distant time, its reality clouded by the darkness of the ages. Yet out of those shadows, my imagination soon picked out familiar images; the world could not have been that different back then—the hilltops must have been just as green, the ribbons of the Nahe and the Glan equally sparkling under the sun. “He wrote it especially for our monastery all those years ago?” I asked wonderingly.

  A shadow of a smile crossed Jutta’s lips but faded before it could blossom. “Our monastery did not exist at that time. The holy monk Disibod arrived between these rivers a hundred years later. Benedict had written for the existing communities as well as those that were yet to be founded.”

  “Did monasteries in Benedict’s time have big churches and walls around them?” My mind was teeming with images of the bygone world.

  “I suppose it depends on where they were located,” Jutta said. “Benedict’s abbey at Montecassino was known for its impressive size. It is still said to be the most beautiful abbey in all of the Italian peninsula. But there were also many small and poor foundations, just as there are today. The most important thing is,” she steered the conversation back to the text, “that The Rule has survived unchanged all this time, and it requires Benedictines to spend their lives in prayer, work, and fasting, and to hold themselves aloof from the worldly ways. It also bans unnecessary speech and laughter, and enjoins us to practice chastity, humility, and obedience to our superiors.”

  I stared at my teacher, unsure of the meaning of ‘worldly ways’ and ‘chastity.’ Whatever these prescriptions referred to, they sounded harsh. I had already noticed that Jutta applied herself to fasting much more diligently than the others. Our typical fare, sent from the abbey kitchen once a day, consisted of black bread, boiled vegetables, water, and wine diluted according to the monastic custom. But Jutta ate hardly anything at all, taking only a piece of bread with a pinch of salt. “Does fasting make God happier with us?” I asked, unable to keep myself from glancing at her thin frame.

  “God wants us to repent for the sins of the world, and the best way to do it is by denying ourselves those things that we find most pleasurable,” the magistra replied.

  “Is it better than praying, going to Mass, and doing good deeds, then?”

  “They are all necessary for the redemption of sins.”

  “So God will not forgive us if we do good deeds and pray but don’t fast all the time?”

  Jutta hesitated. “The sins of the world are too great to be redeemed by prayer and good works alone.” There was a hardness in her voice.

  I was not satisfied. Why should one person, or even a group of anchoresses such as ourselves, take on the work of repenting for everyone else’s sins? Surely that was not a feasible task; there were many people in the world who did bad things. How could the four of us ever accomplish that goal?

  Then something occurred to me. “But Sister, did not Jesus die for our sins so we would be saved?”

  Jutta blinked, but before she could answer, the church bells rang out to summon the community to another service. She rose hastily. As I followed her to the chapel, I reflected that there had to be better ways to serve God than what she was asking of me.

  My only other diversion was music. I soon memorized all the chants of the Divine Office, but my favorite time was the hour before vespers, when the sisters sung and played the psaltery. Save for the gilded breviary, the instrument, delicately carved from young oak, was the only valuable object in the convent. As they plucked the strings, the pure, deep tones filled the pre-dusk hour with stirring solemnity, and no one brought them out better than Sister Juliana.

  She had been educated in the art of musical notation at home. In a rare moment of confidence, she told me how she had used to listen to the minnesingers who stopped at her family’s estate on their way to the imperial court. In exchange for food, they entertained their hosts with merry melodies about hunting, or with sentimental tunes about unrequited love. Sometimes the lyrics would take a ribald turn, and her mother would send young Juliana to bed, but she would sneak back, hide in the shadows of the hall door, and listen to the performances well into the night. In turn, I confided that I had used to eavesdrop on my father discussing business and politics with his guests at Bermersheim. Juliana was the sister with whom I formed the closest bond.

  She became my music instructor. Using a wax tablet and a stylus, she wrote out a stanza of a chant, and drew straight lines in sets of four between the lines of the text. Then she covered the rows with little square marks.

  “Are thes
e the letters of music?”

  Juliana nodded. “You could call them that.”

  “They are so different from the alphabet.” I studied the marks. Some stood separately while others were grouped in clusters or connected to their neighbors with a line, either ascending or descending. “They look simpler than letters, but I cannot read them.”

  “They are called neumes. Few people know how to use them.”

  “Who invented them?”

  “I don’t know, but they are very useful. Writing a melody using this system can help preserve it more accurately than if it is learned by heart and sung or played from memory.”

  I pointed to the sets of four lines. “What are these for?”

  “They allow you to specify the pitch of the sound, so that when you write a neume between the bottom third and fourth lines, like this”—Juliana drew a square in the place indicated—“it denotes a low-pitched sound. When you write it at the top, it indicates a higher one.” By way of illustration, she sang the notes out in her well-trained voice.

  “How clever!”

  “It ensures that singers know how to perform without needing the composer’s explanation.”

  “Who taught you these?” I asked.

  “My governess, who was from Milan.” A hint of nostalgia crept into her voice, and I felt a clutch at my heart as I thought of Uda who had taught me about herbs and their healing properties. But unlike Juliana, I was unable to practice my knowledge in the convent.

  As I became more proficient, I tried my hand at composing a song about airy woods and gardens rich with the fragrance of summer roses. But when I played it, Jutta declared that songs extolling the world had no place in an anchorite convent and had me kneel before the altar for the rest of the day.