llectively, from the sacramentary, diptych, or book of life.
The most famous English _liber vitae_--that of Durham--embraces entries
dating from the time of Edwin, King of Northumbria (616-633), and was
compiled, apparently, between the devastation of Lindisfarne in 793 and
the withdrawal of the monks from the island in 875. In the first
handwriting there are 3,100 names, a goodly proportion of them belonging
to the seventh century. As has been already implied, various degrees are
represented in the rolls of the living and the dead--notably, of course,
benefactors, but recorded in them are bishops and abbots, princes and
nobles, monks and laymen, and often enough this is their only footprint
on the sands of time. The name of a pilgrim in the confraternity book of
any abbey signifies that he was there on the day mentioned.

ECCLESIASTICAL

CHAPTER II

VOWESSES

Not wholly aloof from the subject treated in the previous chapter is the
custom that prevailed in the Middle Ages for widows to assume vows of
chastity. The present topic might possibly have been reserved for the
pages devoted to domestic customs, but the recognition accorded by the
Church to a state which was neither conventual nor lay, but partook of
both conditions in equal measure, decides its position in the economy of
the work. We must deal with it here.

Before discussing the custom in its historical and social relations, it
will be well to advert to the soil of thought out of which it sprang,
and from which it drew strength and sustenance. Already we have spoken
of the heritage of human sentiment. Now there is ample evidence that the
indifference to the marriage of widows which marks our time did not
obtain always and everywhere. On the contrary, among widely separated
races such arrangements evoked deep repugnance, as subversive of the
perfect union of man and wife, and clearly also of the civil inferiority
of females. The notion that a woman is the property of her husband,
joined to a belief in the immortality of the soul, appears to lie at the
root of the dislike to second marriages--which, according to this view,
imply a degree of freedom approximating to immorality. The culmination
of duty and fidelity in life and death is seen in the immolation of
Hindu widows. The Manu prescribes no such fiery ordeal, but it states
the principles leading to this display of futile heroism: "Let her
consecrate her body by living entirely on flowers, roots