The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary by Robert Hugh Benson
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Robert Hugh Benson >> The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary
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8 THE HISTORY OF RICHARD RAYNAL SOLITARY
by
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
PATRI.REVERENDISSIMO
*. *****. ******. *.*.*.
ET
CVIDAM.NESCIENTI
HVNC.LIBRVM
D.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
How Sir John visited Master Hermit: and found him in contemplation
Of the Word from God that came to Master Hermit: and of his setting
out
How Master Richard fared: how he heard Mass in Saint Pancras' Church:
how he came to Westminster: and of his colloquy with the Ankret
How Master Richard saw the King in Westminster Hall: and of the Mass
at Saint Edward's Altar
How Master Richard cried out in Westminster Hall: and of his coming
to a Privy Parlour
Of Master Richard's speaking with the King's Grace: and how he was
taken for it
Of Master Richard's second speaking with his Grace: and of his
detention
Of the Parson's Disquisition on the whole matter
How Master Richard took his meat: and of Master Lieutenant's whipping
of him
Of the Second Temptation of Master Richard: and how he overcame it
Of the Dark Night of the Soul
How Sir John went again to the cell: and of what he saw there
How one came to Master Priest: how Master Priest came to the King's
Bedchamber: and of what he heard of the name of Jesus
Of Sir John's Meditations in Westminster Palace
How Master Richard went to God
Of his Burying
Introduction
In the winter of 1903-4 I had occasion to pass several months in
Rome.
Among other Religious Houses, lately bought back from the Government by
their proper owners, was one (whose Order, for selfish reasons, I prefer
not to specify), situated in the maze of narrow streets between the
Piazza Navona and the Piazza Colonna; this, however, may be said of
the Order, that it is one which, although little known in Italy, had
several houses in England up to the reign of Henry VIII. Like so many
other Orders at that time, its members moved first to France and then to
Italy, where it has survived in penurious dignity ever since.
The Religious were able to take with them at the time of exodus, three
and a half centuries ago, a part of the small library that existed at
the English mother-house, and some few of these MSS. have survived to
the present day; many others, however, have certainly perished; for in
the list of books that I was looking over there one day in March, 1904,
I observed several titles, of which, the priest-librarian told me, the
corresponding volumes have disappeared. To some half-dozen of these
titles, however, there was appended a star, and on enquiring the meaning
of this symbol, I was informed that it denoted that a translation had
been made into French and preserved in the library.
One of these titles especially attracted my attention. It ran as
follows: VITA ET OBITUS DNI RICARDI RAYNAL HEREMITAE.
Upon my asking to see this and its companions, I was conducted to a
dusty shelf in the little upstairs book-room, and was informed that I
might do as I pleased there for two hours, until the _Ave Maria_ rang,
and the doors would be locked.
When the librarian had gone with many nods and smiles, I took down
these half dozen books and carried them to the table by the window, and
until _Ave Maria_ rang I turned their pages.
The volume whose title had especially attracted my attention was a
quarto MS., written, I should suppose from the caligraphy, about the end
of the sixteenth century; a later hand had appended a summary to each
chapter with an appropriate quotation from a psalm. But the book was in
a shocking condition, without binding, and contained no more than a
fragment. The last page was numbered "341," and the first page+ "129."
One hundred and twenty-eight pages, therefore, were certainly lost at
the beginning, and I know not how many at the end; but what was left was
sufficiently engrossing to hold me standing by the window, until the
wrinkled face of the priest looked in again to inform me that unless I
wished to sleep in the library, I must be gone at once.
On the following morning by nine o'clock I was there again; and, after
an interview with the Superior, went up again with the keys in my own
possession, a quantity of foolscap and a fountain-pen in my hand, and
sandwiches in my pocket, to the dusty little room beneath the roof.
I repeated this series of actions, with the exception of the interview,
every day for a fortnight, and when I returned to England in April I
took with me a complete re-translation into English of the "_Vita et
obitus Dni Ricardi Raynal Heremitae_," and it is this re-translation
that is now given to the public, with the correction of many words and
the addition of notes, carried out during the last eighteen months.
* * * * *
It is necessary to give some account of the book itself, but I will not
trouble my readers with an exhaustive survey of the reasons that have
led me to my opinions on the subject: it is enough to say that most of
them are to be found in the text.
It is the story of the life of one of that large body of English
hermits who flourished from about the beginning of the fourteenth
century to the middle of the sixteenth; and was written, apparently for
the sake of the villagers, by his parish-priest, Sir John Chaldfield,
who seems to have been an amiable, devout, and wordy man, who long
outlived his spiritual son. Of all the early part of Master Richard
Raynal's life we are entirely ignorant, except of the facts that his
parents died in his youth, and that he himself was educated at
Cambridge. No doubt his early history was recorded in the one hundred
and twenty-nine pages that are missing at the beginning. It is annoying
also that the last pages are gone, for thereby we have lost what would
probably have been a very full and exhaustive list of the funeral
furniture of the sixteenth century, as well as an account of the
procession into the country and the ceremonies observed at the burial.
We might have heard, too, with some exactness (for Sir John resembles a
journalist in his love of detail) about the way in which his friend's
fame began to spread, and the pilgrims to journey to his shrine. It
would have been of interest to trace the first stages in the
unauthorised cult of one as yet uncanonised. What is left of the book is
the record of only the last week in Master Richard's life and of his
death under peculiar circumstances at Westminster in the bed-chamber
of the King.
It is impossible to know for certain who was this king, but I am
inclined to believe that it was Henry VI., the founder of Eton College
and King's College, Cambridge, whose life ended in such tragedy towards
the close of the fifteenth century. His Queen is not mentioned from
beginning to end, and for this and other reasons I am inclined to
particularise still more, and conjecture that the period of which the
book treats must be prior to the year 1445 A.D., when the King married
at the age of twenty-three.
Supposing that these conjectures are right, the cardinal spoken of in
the book would be Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and cousin
of the King.
All this, however, must be doubtful, since the translator of the
original English or Latin appears to have omitted with scrupulous care
the names of all personages occurring in the narrative, with one or two
unimportant exceptions. We do not even know in what part of the country
Sir John Chaldfield held his living, but it appears to have been within
thirty or forty miles of London. We must excuse the foreign scribe,
however; probably the English names were unintelligible and barbarous to
his perceptions; and appeared unimportant, too, compared to the interest
of the mystical and spiritual experiences recorded in the book.
Of these experiences it is difficult to write judiciously in this
practical age.
Master Richard Raynal appears to have been a very curious young man, of
great personal beauty, extreme simplicity, and a certain magnetic
attractiveness. He believed himself, further, to be in direct and
constant communication with supernatural things, and would be set down
now as a religious fanatic, deeply tinged with superstition. His parson,
too, in these days, would be thought little better, but at the time in
which they lived both would probably be regarded with considerable
veneration. We hear, in fact, that a chapel was finally erected over
Master Raynal's body, and that pilgrimages were made there; and
probably, if the rest of the work had been preserved to us, we should
have found a record of miracles wrought at his shrine. All traces,
however, of that shrine have now disappeared--most likely under the
stern action of Henry VIII.--and Richard's name is unknown to
hagiology, in spite of his parson's confidence as regarded his future
beatification.
It is, however, interesting to notice that in Master Raynal's
religion, as in Richard Rolle's, hermit of Hampole, there appears to
have been some of that inchoate Quietism which was apt to tinge the
faith of a few of the English solitaries. He was accustomed to attend
mass devoutly and to receive the sacraments, and on his death-bed was
speeded into the next world, at his own desire, by all the observances
prescribed by the Catholic Church. His attitude, too, towards the
priesthood, is somewhat uncharacteristic of his fellows, who were apt
to boast with apparent complacency that they were neither "monk, friar,
nor clerk." In other matters he is a good type of that strange race of
solitaries who swarmed in England at that time, who were under no vows,
but served God as it pleased them, not hesitating to go among their
fellows from time to time if they thought themselves called to it, who
were looked upon with veneration or contempt, according to the opinion
formed of them by their observers, but who, at any rate, lived a simple
and wholesome life, and were to some extent witnesses to the existence
of a supernatural Power at whose bidding (so they believed) they were
summoned to celibacy, seclusion, labour, and prayer.
It is curious also to trace through Sir John's fanciful eyes the
parallels between the sufferings of Master Richard and those of
Christ. Of course, no irreverence is intended. I should imagine that,
if Sir John were put on his defence, he would say that the life of
every true Christian must approximate to the life of Christ so far as
his spirit is identified with the Divine Spirit, and that this is
occasionally fulfilled even in minute details.
It is unnecessary to add much more in this introduction--(for the story
will tell its own tale)--beyond saying that the re-translation of the
French fragment into English has been to me a source of considerable
pleasure. I have done my best to render it into the English of its
proper period, including even its alliterations, while avoiding needless
archaisms and above all arbitrary spelling. But no doubt I am guilty of
many solecisms. I have attempted also to elucidate the text by a number
of footnotes, in which I have explained whatever seemed to call for it,
and have appended translations to the numerous Latin quotations in which
Sir John indulges after the manner of his time. I must apologise for
these footnotes--(such are always tiresome)--but I could think of no
other way by which the text could be made clear. They can always be
omitted without much loss by the reader who has no taste for them.
Sir John's style is a little difficult sometimes, especially when he
treats in detail of his friend's mystical experience, but he has a
certain power of word-painting (unusual at his date) in matters both of
nature and of grace, and it is only when he has been unduly trite or
obscure that I have ventured, with a good deal of regret, to omit his
observations. All such omissions, however, as well as peculiar
difficulties of statement or allusion, have been dealt with in
foot-notes.
With regard to the function of the book, at any rate since its first
translation into French, it is probably safe to conjecture that it may
have been used at one time for reading aloud in the refectory. I am led
to make this guess from observing its division into chapters, and the
quasi-texts appended to each. These texts are of all sorts, though all
are taken from the Book of Psalms; but their application to the matter
that follows is sometimes fanciful, frequently mystical, and
occasionally trite.
If the book receives any sympathy from English readers--(an eventuality
about which I have my doubts)--I shall hope, at some future date, to
edit others of the MSS. still reposing in the little room under the roof
between the _Piazza Navona_ and the _Piazza Colonna_ in Rome, to which I
have been generously promised free access.
I must express my gratitude to the Superior of the Order of ---- (to
whose genius, coupled with that of another, I dedicate this book), for
giving me permission to edit his MS.; to Dom Robert Maple, O.S.B., for
much useful information and help in regard to the English mystics; and
to Mme. Germain who has verified references, interpreted difficulties,
and assisted me by her encouragement.
ROBERT BENSON.
Cambridge,
Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1905.
How Sir John visited Master Hermit: and found him in contemplation
_Protexit me in abscondito tabernaculi sui._
He hath protected me in the secret place of His tabernacle.
--Ps. xxvi. 5.
I
[The Ms. begins abruptly at the top of the page.]
... It was at vespers on the fourth day afterwards, being Corpus
Christi, that saint Giles, as I suppose, moved me to visit Master
Richard. So I put on my cap again, and took my furred gown, for I
thought it would be cold before I came home; and set out through the
wood. I was greatly encouraged by the beauty of the light as I went
down; the sun shone through the hazels on my right, and the roof of
leaves was a fair green over my head; and to right and left lay a carpet
of flowers as blue as the Flanders' glass above the altar. I had learnt
from Master Richard, though he was thirty years my younger, many
beautiful lessons, and one of them that God's Majesty speaks to us by
the works of His almighty hands. So when I saw the green light and the
gold and the blue, and the little flies that made merry in the way, I
took courage.
At the lower end of the wood, as you know, the path falls down steeply
towards the stream, and when it has left the wood there are meadows to
right and left, that were bright with yellow flowers at this time. In
front the stream runs across the road under hazels, and where the chapel
is still a-building over his body, on the left side, with its back
against the wood stood his little house.
I will tell you of all this, as I saw it then; for the pilgrims have
trampled it all about now, and the stream is all befouled and the banks
broken, and the trees cut down by the masons that came to make the
second chapel where Master Richard was wont to bathe himself, against
the fiend's temptations at first, and afterwards for cleanness' sake,
too--(for I never heard of a hermit as cleanly as was this young man,
soon, and in spite of his washings, by the prayers of our Lady and saint
Giles, to be declared among the blessed servants of God.)
The meadow was a fair circle of grass; with trees on every side but on
this where the gate stood. It sloped to the stream that ran shallow over
the stones, and down across it from the cell to the pool lay the path
trampled hard by Master Richard's feet; for he had lived there four
years at this time since his coming from Cambridge. Besides this path
there was another that circled the meadow, and it was on this that he
walked with God. I have seen him there sometimes from the gate, with his
hands clasped, fingers to fingers, and his eyes open but seeing nothing;
and if it had not been for the sin in my soul (on which God have pity!)
I might have seen, too, the heavenly company that often went with him
and of which he told me.
Before the hut lay a long garden-bed, in which the holy youth grew beans
in their season, and other vegetables at other times; for it was on
these, with nuts from the hazelwood, and grasses of which I know not the
names (though he has told me of them many times), with water from the
stream, that he sustained his life.
On either side of the hut stood a great may-tree; it was on account of
these that he had built his little house here, for he knew the
properties and divine significations of such things.
The house itself was of wattles, plastered with mud from the brook, and
thatched with straw. There was a door of wood that he leaned against the
opening on this side when he prayed, but not when he slept, and a little
square window high up upon the other side that looked into the green
wood. It is of that same door that saint Giles' new altar was made, for
the house fell down after his going, and the wind blew about the mud and
the sticks, and the pilgrims have now carried all away. I took the door
myself, when I came back and had seen him go through the heavenly door
to our Lord.
The house within was a circle, three strides across, with a domed roof
like a bee-hive as high as a man at the sides and half as high again in
the centre. On the left lay his straw for a bed, and above it on the
wall the little square of linen that he took afterwards with him to
London, worked with the five precious wounds of our Saviour. On the
right hand side was a wooden stool where he sat sometimes to pray and on
the wall against it a little press that held some bottles within, and in
another shelf some holy relics that are now in the church, and in
another his six books; and above, upon the top, a little cross with our
Lord upon it, very rude; for he said that the eyes of the soul should
not be hindered by the eyes of the body, and that our Lord showed
Himself often to him more clearly and truly than a craftsman could make
Him. Above the window was a little figure of the Mother of God, set
there, he told me, above the sight of the green wood, because she was
the mother of all living, and had restored what Eve had spoiled.
I cannot tell you, my children, of the peace of this place. The little
house, and indeed the whole circle of the meadow set about with trees,
was always to me as a mansion in paradise. There were no sounds here but
the song of the birds and the running of the water and the wind in the
trees; and no sight of any other world but this, except in winter when
the hill over against the hut showed itself through the branches not
three hundred paces away. On all other sides the woods rose to the sky.
I think that the beasts knew the peace of the place. I have seen often a
stag unafraid watching Master Richard as he dug or walked on his path;
the robins would follow him, and the little furry creatures sit round
him with ears on end. And he told me, too, that never since he had come
to the place had blood fallen on the ground except his own when he
scourged himself. The hunting-weasel never came here, though the conies
were abundant; the stags never fought here though there was a fair
ground for a battlefield. It was a peace that passed understanding, and
what that peace is the apostle tells us.
Here I came then on Corpus Christi evening, thirty years ago, as the sun
was near its setting behind the gate through which I came, and my shadow
lay half-across the meadow before me.
* * * * *
It appeared to me that somewhat was amiss, but I knew not what it was: I
was a little afraid. Master Richard was not to be seen, but his door was
wide, so I thought he would not be praying. As I came up the path I saw
something that astonished me. There was a circle of beasts about the
hut, little conies that sat in the sunlight and shadow, without feeding,
though it was the time for it; and as I came nearer I saw other beasts.
There was a wild cat crouched in the shadow of the hazels moving his
tail from side to side; a stag with his two does stood beneath a
beech-tree, and a boar looked over the bank against which stood the hut.
They did not move as I came up and looked in at the door.
This is what I saw within.
The holy youth was seated on his stool with his hands gripping the sides
and his eyes open, and he was looking towards the image of our Saviour
on the right-hand side.
You have seen his holy and uncorrupt body, but in life he was different
to that. He was not above twenty years old at this time, and of a beauty
that drew men's eyes to him. [This is the exact phrase used of Richard
Rolle, hermit of Hampole.] His hair was as you know it; a straight,
tawny, nut-brown head of hair that fell to his shoulders; and he had the
cleanest line of face that ever I have seen.
His hair came low upon his straight forehead; his nose was straight,
with fine nostrils; he had a little upper lip on which grew no hair, a
full lip beneath very short, and a round cleft chin; his eyebrows were
dark and arched; his whole face smooth and thin, and of an extraordinary
clean paleness; he had a curved throat turned to a pale brown by the
sun, though the colour of his body, I have heard it said, was as white
as milk. He was dressed always in a white kirtle beneath, and a brown
sleeveless frock over it of the colour of his hair, that came to his
ankles, and was girt with a leather band. He went barefoot, but carried
a great hat on his shoulders when he walked. He moved slowly at such
times, and bore himself upright. His hands were fine and slender, and
were burned brown like his face and his throat.
I tell you that I have never seen such a wonderful beauty in mortal man;
and his soul was yet more lovely. It is no wonder that God's Majesty
delighted in him, and that the saints came to walk with him. He was
like neither man nor woman. He had the grey eyes of a woman, the mouth
and chin of a man, the hands of a matron, and the figure of a strong
virgin. I was always a little man, as you know, and when I walked with
him, as I did sometimes, the top of my cap came just beneath his ear.
Master Richard, as I have said, was seated now on his stool, with his
knees together, and his hands gripping the sides of his seat. His chin
was a little thrust out, and he was as still as a stock. This I knew,
was the manner in which sometimes he entered into strong contemplation;
and I knew, too, that he would neither hear me nor see me till he moved.
So I watched him a moment or two, and I grew yet more afraid as I
watched; for this is what I saw:
Down from his temples across his cheeks ran little drops of sweat on to
his brown frock, and that though it was a cool evening, and his spade
was hung on its peg beneath the window. (It was the spade that you have
seen in the church with a cross-handle polished by his holy hands.)
I looked for a while, and I grew yet more afraid. It seemed to me that
there was somewhat in the cell that I could not see. I looked up at the
window but there was nothing there but the still green hazel leaves; I
looked at his bed, at the smooth mud walls and floor, at the domed roof,
and, through the hole in the centre, where the smoke escaped when he
made a fire, I could see leaves again and the evening sky. Yet the place
was full of something; there was something of energy or conflict, I knew
not which: some person was striving there.
Then I was suddenly so much afraid that I dared not stay, and I went
back again along the path, and walked at the lower end of the meadow
beside the stream.
Of the Word from God that came to Master Hermit: and of his setting out
_Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi: et semitas tuas educe me._
Shew, O Lord, Thy ways to me: and teach me Thy paths.--_Ps. xxiv. 4._
II
There are, as you have learned from me, and I from Master Richard
Raynal, a trinity of natures in man. There is that by which he has to do
with the things of matter--his five wits; that by which he has to do
with God Almighty and the saints--his immortal soul and her powers; and,
for the last, that by which he has to do with men--his lower
understanding, his mind, his power of speech, and the like. Each nature
has its proper end, though each ministers to the other. With his ears
he hears God's Word, with his immortal soul he perceives God Almighty in
what is seen with the eyes; with his understanding he comprehends the
nature of flowers and the proper time to sow or reap. This trinity may
be devoted to God or the fiend.... It is not true, as some have said,
that it is only with the soul that God is perceived or served, and that
the other two are unclean. We may serve God by digging with the hands,
by talking friendly with our neighbour, and by the highest of all which
is contemplation.
This is what Master Richard did, following the Victorines but not
altogether. He strove to serve God alike in all, and I count his life,
therefore, the highest that I have ever known. He said that to dig, to
talk over the gate with a neighbour, and to contemplate the Divine
Essence, were all alike to serve God. He counted none wasted, for God
Almighty had made the trinity of natures in His own image, and
intended, therefore, a proper occupation for each. To refuse to dig or
to talk was not to honour contemplation; and this he said, though he
said besides that some could not do this through reason of finding that
one distracted the other. I count, however, that his own life was the
hardest, for he did all three, and did not suffer one to distract
another.
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