Cruel indeed was their condition. Some, truly, sought for rest and quiet in the cloister; but in those days the cloister was death to the world. The charitable orders of Francis and Dominic were as yet undreamed of. Only the great meditative orders offered absolute renunciation and absolute seclusion. Timid and clinging hearts could not so utterly forego their world; many busy energetic spirits felt no vocation for the dreamy quiet of the cloistered nun. And for these the world was hard. They must beg the bread which their labour could very seldom earn. One dreadful trade indeed, which the desires of men leave ever open to the despair of women, one trade found many followers. But there were pure and holy women, and venerable women, and dying women, who could not live in sin. And there might be seen in every market-place miserable and hungry petitioners, crying, “For God’s sake, give us bread; bread for the love of Christ!”
_Swestrones Brod durch Got._ Sisters of bread for the sake of God. The name often strikes us in later writing. The singular title has become familiar. For when we read of piteous uncloistered piety, and when we read of humble merit rebuking the sins of arrogant Churchmen, and in the account of strange mystical heresies, and in the lists of interdicts and burnings, we shall often meet in the monkish Latin of Germany and Flanders that outlandish phrase: we shall hear again of the _Swestrones Brod durch Got_.
In the year 1180, there lived in Liege a certain kindly, stammering priest, known from his infirmity as Lambert le Bègue. This man took pity on the destitute widows of his town. Despite the impediment in his speech, he was, as often happens, a man of a certain power and eloquence in preaching. His words, difficult to find, brought conviction when they came. This Lambert so moved the hearts of his hearers that gold and silver poured in on him, given to relieve such of the destitute women of Liege as were still of good and pious life. With the moneys thus collected, Lambert built a little square of cottages, with a church in the middle and a hospital, and at the side a cemetery. Here he housed these homeless widows, one or two in each little house, and then he drew up a half-monastic rule which was to guide their lives. The rule was very simple, quite informal: no vows, no great renunciation bound the _Swestrones Brod durch Got_. A certain time of the day was set apart for prayer and pious meditation; the other hours they spent in spinning or sewing, in keeping their houses clean, or they went as nurses in time of sickness into the homes of the townspeople. They were bidden to be obedient; and to be chaste so long as they remained of the sisterhood, but they might marry again at will with no disgrace. If rich women chose to join the new and unsanctioned guild, they might leave a portion of their riches to any heir they chose. Thus these women, though pious and sequestered, were still in the world and of the world; they helped in its troubles, and shared its afflictions, and at choice they might rejoin the conflict.