o might be guilty of it.

The question has been raised why widows did not, instead of making their
especial vow, enter the third orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis,
both of them intended for pious persons remaining in the world. The
answer has already, in some degree, been given in what was said
regarding the extinct order of deaconesses. Followers of St. Dominic and
St. Francis were bound to recite daily a shortened form of the Breviary,
supposing that they were able to read, or, if they were not able, a
certain number of Aves and Paternosters. They were further expected to
observe sundry fasts over and above those commanded by the Church, and
thus they became qualified for all the benefits accruing to the first
two orders, Dominican and Franciscan. With the vowesses it was
different. The one condition imposed upon them was that of chastity, as
tending to a state of sanctification. They took upon themselves no other
obligation whatever, and consequently acquired no title to the blessings
and privileges flowing from the strict observance of rules to which they
did not subscribe. Even after the Reformation the custom did not
absolutely cease. At any rate, Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, who
died in 1676, is stated, after the death of her last husband, to have
dressed in black serge and to have been very abstemious in the matter of
food.

Here and there may be found funeral monuments containing representations
of vowesses. Leland remarks, with reference to a member of the Marmion
family at West Tanfield, Yorkshire: "There lyeth there alone a lady with
the apparill of a vowess"; and in Norfolk there are still in existence
two brasses of widows and vowesses. The earlier and smaller, of about
the year 1500, adjoins the threshold of the west door of Witton church,
near Blofield, and bears the figure of a lady in a gown, mantle, barbe
or gorget, and veil, together with the inscription:

ORATE ANIMA DOMINE JULIANE ANGELL
VOTRICIS CUJUS ANIME PROPRICIETUR DEUS.

The other example is in the little church of Frenze, near Diss, which
contains, among a number of other interesting brasses, that of a lady
clothed, like the former, in gown, mantle, barbe, and veil. This figure,
however, shows cuffs; the gown is encircled with an ornamental girdle,
and depending from the mantle on long cords ending in tassels.
Underneath runs the legend:

HIC JACET TUMULATA DOMINA JOHANNA
BRAHAM VIRDUA AC DEO DEDICATA. OLIM UXOREM