the obligation
imposed on the former to accomplish certain outward works, whereas
widows vowed to remain till death in a single life, in which, like nuns,
they were regarded as mystically espoused to Christ. Unlike nuns,
however, vowesses usually supported the burdens entailed by their
previous marriage--superintending the affairs of the household and
interesting themselves in the welfare of their descendants. St.
Elizabeth of Hungary, though she bound herself to follow the injunctions
of her confessor and received from him a coarse habit of undyed wool,
did not become a nun, but, on his advice, retained her secular estate
and ministered to the needs of the poor. But instances occur in which
vowesses retired from the world and its cares. Elfleda, niece of King
Athelstan, having resolved to pass the remainder of her days in
widowhood, fixed her abode in Glastonbury Abbey; and as late as July 23,
1527, leave was granted to the Prioress of Dartford to receive "any
well-born matron widow, of good repute, to dwell perpetually in the
monastery without a habit according to the custom of the monastery." Now
and then a widow would completely embrace the religious life, as is
shown by an inscription on the brass of John Goodrington, of Appleton,
Berkshire, dated 1519, which states that his widow "toke relygyon at y^e
monastery of Sion."

The position of vowesses in the eyes of the Church may be illustrated in
various ways. For example, the homilies of the Anglo-Saxon AElfric
testify to a triple division of the people of God. "There are," says he,
"three states which bear witness of Christ; that is, maidenhood, and
widowhood, and lawful matrimony." And with the quaintness of mediaeval
symbolists, he affirms that the house of Cana in Galilee had three
floors--the lowest occupied by believing married laymen, the next by
reputable widows, and the uppermost by virgins. Emphasis is given to the
order of comparative merit thus defined by the application to it of one
of our Lord's parables, for the first are to receive the thirty-fold,
the second the sixty-fold, and the third and highest division the
hundred-fold reward. Similarly, a hymn in the Sarum Missal for the
festival of Holy Women asserts:

Fruit thirty-fold she yielded,
While yet a wedded wife;
But sixty-fold she rendered,
When in a widowed life.

And a Good Friday prayer in the same missal is introduced with the
words: "Let us also pray for all bishops, prie