ON BL. RYCWERA, PREMONSTRATENSIAN NUN,
IN THE YEAR 1136.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
Ricwera, nun of the Premonstratensian order. (B.)
BY V. D. B.
§ Sole. The sparse cult, the birth, the conversion and the praise of the holiness of Bl. Rycwera.
At the 25th day of October, at the beginning of the Commentary on Bl. Louis of Arnstein, we discussed the beginnings of the public cult of the Saints and Blessed of the Premonstratensian Order; [Bl. Rycwera does not seem to be excluded from the number of the Premonstratensian Blessed.] where we showed that they belong almost to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. But although the disciples and brethren of St. Norbert were so sparing in celebrating the alumni of their Order, they nevertheless preserved with veneration the memory of several, which holds the place, as it were, of public cult. Hence certainly no small hesitation arises for us, whether the members of that order to whom this fortune fell are to be illustrated or omitted in our Work. Indeed we were very doubtful about Bl. Rycwera; whose deeds we narrate here only because at Prémontré the Servant of God was always held in singular honour; chiefly because knowledge of the place of her burial still persisted in the middle of the seventeenth century, when Jean Le Paige was writing, and more beautiful roses were said to grow and bloom over her tomb; which is also recorded by Chrysostom Van der Sterre in the manuscript Supplement to the Natales of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, preserved in our Museum At the 29th day of October., or also by Jan Van Craywinckel Legende van het orden van Premonstreit, vol. II, p. 645., diligent historiographers of that Order.
[2] [She is first announced among the saints without a day, then at the 23rd of May, and finally, better, at the 29th of October.] Du Saussay, following beyond doubt documents received at Prémontré, was the first, in the year 1637, in which his book came out, to bring the name of Bl. Richmera (thus he erred in one letter) into the sacred calendars, marking it among the aëmeri, or among the heavenly ones assigned to no certain day, namely in the Appendix of the Gallican Martyrology P. 1230.. These are du Saussay's words: "Bl. Richmera, Premonstratensian nun, buried in the same place with the title of glory." Chastelain imitated du Saussay Martyrologe Universel, pp. 888 and 1164. and placed the holy Ryewera among the aëmeri, but called her only venerable, since he was mostly accustomed to call blessed and saints only those who are venerated with a liturgical office Ibid., Avertissement.. Saint-Allais Martyrologe Universel, dictionnaire des Saints, etc., p. 119. and Pétin Diction. hagiol., Supplement, col. 1564. as usual copied Chastelain. In the year 1653, in the Gynaeceum of Arthur du Monstier, her memory was celebrated at the 23rd day of May in these words: "In the Premonstratensian monastery of the diocese of Laon, the falling asleep of Bl. Ryewera, disciple of St. Norbert the abbot, etc." But the birthday of the 29th of October was known to Pierre de Waghenare Sanctus Norbertus Canonicorum Praemonstratensium patriarcha, part I, p. 115. from ancient Premonstratensian monuments, and he reports it in his Norbert, celebrated in prose and published in the year 1651. Whence the same day passed into the manuscript Supplement to the Premonstratensian Natales of Chrysostom Van der Sterre, no less than into the Dutch Legend of Jan Van Craywinckel and into the Ephemerides of the Premonstratensian Order of Georg Lienhart. We confess that from these documents it is not easily drawn that public and ecclesiastical cult was shown to Bl. Rycwera a hundred years before the decree of Urban VIII of the year 1634. But it must not be forgotten that the Premonstratensians used less display in publicly honouring their saints; and therefore that in judging their cult we must use indulgence [Compare Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 810 f.; vol. XI of Oct., p. 720 ff.; Bened. XIV, De Beatif., etc., book I, ch. XLI, no. 5.].
[3] With the consent of her husband Raymond de Clastres, and having made a donation, Jean Le Paige held that she was born of a noble family of the Vermandois; he was followed by Jan Van Craywinckel and others; and indeed that she was joined in marriage with Raymond de Clastres, and not without his consent received the sacred veil from St. Norbert himself in the year 1122. In testimony of these things Le Paige, in the Bibliotheca Praemonstratensis P. 438., and Hémeré, in the Augusta Veromanduorum P. 149., reported a fragment of a charter of Simon, bishop of Noyon, who interposed his authority in that business. "I, Simon," he says, "by the grace of God bishop of Noyon, wish it to be made known to those present as well as to those to come, that at the time when the lord Norbert, a man of admirable religion, betook himself with his followers to the place of Prémontré to serve God, a certain noble woman, Ryewera by name, wife of Raymond de Clastres, betook herself to the aforesaid place for the sake of conversion, and for the support of the brethren of that place handed over to be freely possessed a corrucata of allodial land which she had at Bolmont, etc. Done at Noyon in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1120 ." The learned Melleville adds that from the marriage of Raymond and Bl. Ryewera was born a daughter Harida, who afterwards married a certain Guy and brought him the lordship of Clastres Diction. Hist. du départ. de l'Aisne, vol. I, p. 257.. The place of Clastres is not altogether obscure, although not many more than 600 inhabitants are reckoned in it. It lies, namely, two leagues from the town of Saint-Quentin, and four or five from Noyon [Expilly, Dictionnaire géographique, etc., des Gaules et de la France, vol. II, p. 359, under Clastres; Dictionnaire Universel, etc., de la France, vol. I, p. 716, Paris, year XIII. Compare Matton, Diction. topographique de l'Aisne, p. 71.], and seems at some time to have been erected into a viscounty [Anselme, Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la Maison de France, vol. III, p. 614, vol. IV, p. 397.]. Of Raymond nothing more has become known. For the rest, from canon law itself anyone can easily learn what things are required for a married woman to be able to embrace religion, and indeed above all the husband's consent.
[4] [in the year 1120 she came to Prémontré, at the beginnings of the new religious order;] Some hold [The author of the Supplement to the Natales, etc.; De Waghenare, Norbertus, p. 115; Van Craywinckel, vol. II, p. 645.] that this Ryewera was the first of all to be admitted among the Premonstratensian nuns. Others that she was at least among the first Hugo, Vie de S. Norbert, book II, p. 111.. Which latter opinion is safer, since it is nowhere handed down by the ancients what woman first entered the new religious order. As we have noted elsewhere Acta SS., vol. XI of October, p. 1044., St. Norbert came to Prémontré at the beginning of the year 1120. In a short time he accomplished much there, a man in word and deed not much less powerful and active than St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. And as the other apostolic men who, at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century, having roused crowds of both sexes to turn away from the allurements of this world and to serve the living and true God, founded either double monasteries or separate monasteries of men and of women; so too St. Norbert could not but admit not only men but also women to follow his manner of life. Wherefore, as Hermann of Laon says, "with the male sex he resolved to receive the female also to conversion" [De miraculis Mariae Laudunensis, book III, ch. VII, cited in Acta SS., vol. XI of Oct., p. 739.]; and that indeed at the very beginning of the new religious order, as is clear from the diploma mentioned; and so we must abandon both Jan Van Craywinckel, who relates that Bl. Rycwera came to conversion only in the year 1122, and Georg Lienhart, who with Arthur du Monstier tied the same event to the year 1121. Of the Premonstratensian nuns it has been spoken in the Acts of St. Norbert, their father Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 817 ff., and in the Acts of Bl. Louis of Arnstein [Ibid., vol. XI of Oct., p. 739 ff. Compare Helyot, Hist. des Ordres religieux, vol. II, p. 179 ff., edition of 1792.], who gave his wife Guda, no less than Raymond de Clastres did, consent to leave his bed; so that we can abstain here from explaining their institutes.
[5] whose institutes have been declared elsewhere. These nuns, although they were entirely separated from the brethren in dwelling and manner of life, do not seem to have come together into colleges of their own and under their own right, but, no less than the lay brothers, were destined to labour on behalf of the canons; while on the other hand the canons ministered spiritual and temporal assistance to them. They had, therefore, no part in the divine Office, but attended it in silence, reading their psalters and the canonical hours or those of the Blessed Virgin in secret, and in
other works serving the church and the brethren, by sewing, spinning, weaving, washing The Chronologer of Park, ms., in Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 818.. At the beginning much holiness flourished in these women's enclosures; but gradually, as in all the other religious orders, such great and grave inconveniences arose that almost all were suppressed or transferred to the Cistercians, and only very few, and those placed apart from the men's houses, survived. The very convent of virgins of Prémontré, of which Bl. Rycwera was the chief ornament, underwent the common law, and in the year 1141 was transferred to Fontenelle, a league distant from Prémontré; and thence to the court of Rosières, and finally to the court of Bonolium (Bonœil), near the town of Ham in Picardy. But these things were done after the death of Bl. Rycwera, who died at Prémontré in the year 1136; where she made illustrious the chapel of SS. Gervase and Protase by the fervour of her prayers, and the hospital, the chief guest-house of the virgins, by the exercise of her virtues Hugo, Annales Praemonstratenses, vol. I, col. 389 ff..
[6] She is illustrious there for virtues Of which Le Paige has related these things: "She then," he says, "having been presented at Prémontré (to the amazement of all) with the sacred veil by the hands of St. Norbert and consecrated to God, in a short time shone before all so diligently with such great virtues, and especially with works of piety, that she deserved to be set over the hospital of the poor there. In which office, the more deformed anyone was by diseases, the more inclined she was to serve him, so that by the mouth of all she was proclaimed the one and true solace of the poor, the needy and the desolate. She then, although placed in body on earth and occupied with Martha in the care of serving, nevertheless was conversant in mind with heavenly things by assiduous contemplation of divine things. She suffered great assaults of the devil, which she turned to flight by the power of prayer. A fire which threatened the hospital with utter destruction she checked and extinguished with the sign of the cross. At length, weighed down by long-continued labour of vigils and fasts, and laden with works of admirable piety and charity, seized with a slow fever, she died happily in the year of the Lord 1136, and lies buried at Prémontré in the cemetery of the poor" Bibliotheca Praemonstratensis, p. 438..
[7] and for good works. In the manuscript Supplement to the Natales of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order we read these things about the same virtues: "Bl. Rycwera, a noble matron, who first of her sex received the habit of the Premonstratensian Order from the hands of St. Norbert, was of such virtue and holiness that she is recorded to have turned demons to flight, and to have extinguished with the sign of the cross a fire which threatened utter destruction to the hospital over which she presided; and although she was occupied with the care of serving, nevertheless by assiduous contemplation of divine things she was conversant in mind with heavenly things. Consumed at length by the long-continued rigour of vigils and fasts, but laden with works of admirable piety and charity, she was carried off by a slow fever in the year 1136, and buried at Prémontré in the cemetery of the poor. Her tomb, with certain roses growing over it in wonderful manner, is said to be venerable still." Almost the same things are related by Pierre de Waghenare in his St. Norbert, Jan Van Craywinckel in the praised Dutch Legend of the Premonstratensian Order, and Georg Lienhart in the Premonstratensian Ephemerides. Hugo promised that he would publish the Life of Bl. Rycwera in the second part of his Annals Annales Praemonstratenses, vol. I, col. 392., but he could not keep these promises.
Annotata* Hémeré reads Ricamera.
* 112 in Le Paige.