Missives Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall August 9, 1114 To John Godwinson, Godwinson Hall, Cornwall Dearest John, Sic transit gloria mundi! That was copied from Brother Anselm’s book. He said that my handwriting is beautiful, but why would I want to start a letter home with “so passes the glory of the world”? They have such a deficit of workers in the Scriptorium that they cannot spare anyone to teach me Latin. They even have me copying; me, a boy of twelve! Thank God I already know how to make letters, even if the meaning of Latin words is a mystery. For my literacy I thank your father daily in my prayers. You would laugh to see my head (newly tonsured, an odd feeling) peeping out of a novice’s white hood, surrounded by mountains of vellum. I look like a cranberry on a snow drift. Clairveaux is beautiful but I am afraid that you will not like it. It is nothing like home. I have never seen so much paper in my life; there are books everywhere, thrilling for one who has only seen your father’s Bible and the church’s Book of Saints. It is quite dark here, especially in the Scriptorium where there is not even a candle for fear of a fire. Clairveaux is also silent. They gave me a last name today. The clerk asked me my name to write in his big book and I told him Rufus. He asked what my last name was and I said I didn’t have one. You have to have one, he said. So I told him I was raised in Peyton with the Godwinson family, and I am now Rufus Peyton. I would rather have been Rufus Godwinson, because it sounds regal, but it is not my choice I suppose. How is Godwinson Hall? Are your mother and father well? Are Yolande, Beatrice, Catherine and Young Thomas? Well, that is a stupid question, even from me. A better one: is he better or worse? Send him (and everyone else, of course) my love and prayers and if he is worse, please do not lose sleep caring for him. But it is not my place to order you to do something or not do something, especially not now, as I am supposed to be one of God’s humblest creatures. Soon after you left me here they took the beautiful cloak you gave me, also my knife, saying that they were too rich for Cisterians who may own nothing. Then they shaved the top of my head. It was cold but the brothers were smiling so broadly that I did not put up the hood of my robe for fear of offending them. I do not know all the rules here but I do not think I have broken any yet. One fall, one winter, a spring until I see you again. That is ten months-- how many days? Are you looking forward to becoming a monk too or are you thinking ‘darkness and silence’ and shuddering at the idea? The lord’s son and the orphan, and we’re going to live our lives together. God works in mysterious ways. I cannot say that I am unhappy with my future here. Tonight’s Vespers, Compline and then the Great Silence: that is all that is left in my first week as a monk. I am already grateful and I know I will be happy here with the paper and stone and you. Your own, Rufus Peyton ------------------------------------- Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall April 24, 1117 Brother John Godwinson, London Dearest John, As you can see from these margins, my status has changed: I am now an illuminator as well as a copyist! Eleven days ago Brother Lanfranc decided that he was old enough and I was skilled enough to warrant an apprenticeship. My world has suddenly widened from black letters on tan squares to innumerable colors and shapes and it is beautiful. Praised be Our Lord Jesus for the wonders of this world! I am even creating my own scenes; at the left you see Saint Jerome writing, at right you see my sad attempts at portraiture. Maybe if I had your face to work from it would be better, but I hardly know what either of us look like anymore. I am writing from the infirmary, but do not worry. In Matins this morning I was listening to one of Brother Pepin’s detailed lectures on the virgin martyrs when I began to feel dizzy, and soon fell gasping out of my chair. It was nothing, really, just the combined shock of a cold spring, a meager diet and late hours in the Scriptorium, but it was enough for them to send me here and feed me meat. This is the first time I have eaten meat in almost three years and it is as delicious as I remembered. As I ate, the brother in the bed next to mine winked at me and confided that he sometimes feigns illness for a bite of cow. I thought it was a confession so I started to absolve him of the sin and he laughed and told me to save my prayers. I can hardly believe that such things exist within a monastery, but exist they do. Sometimes I wonder why men like Brother Pepin joined the monastery if they are so obsessed with women, or why Brother Thomas joined if he loves beef ribs above the Benedictine Rule. If you see any of the root you purchased on your last trip, please buy a few large pieces. Whatever kind you bought last time makes a richer yellow than I have ever seen. Also, if you have enough money, please get a few sheaves of low-rate parchment for practice. The type you bought three months ago would be fine, if you can get it. And please keep me updated on the latest news of your travels. Do they know your face in London yet? This may sound ridiculous or even impious, or prying or vulgar, but I have heard awful things about London and stories of the monks who live there. Goliards, they call them, false monks: they wear the habit but revel in the most sinful manner at taverns and brothels. Succubi abound in these wicked cities. Certainly this would not apply to you, as the paragon of dignity, but my years of training supersede my common sense and I blushingly remind you to recite a Procul Recedant Somnia every night. How is the Hall and everyone in it? How are the sheep? Your own, Brother Rufus ------------------------------------- Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall October 13, 1118 To Brother John Godwinson, London Dearest John-- So the Compline Hymn is no match for the succubi of London. I have not been here long enough to get you out of this mess. I have no seniority outside of the Scriptorium and you should know I don’t have the audacity to defend you before Abbot William when you have been accused of this sort of crime. How would I defend you beyond repeating the lame excuse that you are my friend? Our friendship is enough to preserve my faith in your basic goodness but that is all. I have not seen any women since Godwinson Hall except for ancient nuns so perhaps I have no perspective, but how could you even think of it? Have you learned nothing from you father’s example? Do you want to bring illegitimates like Yolande and Beatrice into the world when there is no kind father Godwinson to take care of them? I think better of you than this so I conclude, I must believe, that this was her devilish temptation and not your own will. Sending the baby to the Hall sounds like the best idea, weak as it is you cannot care for it, nor would it be proper to. I know from experience that they are used to abandoned children at your home. I wonder that you do not curse and despise the evil mother as much as I do now. To leave a child outright-- it strinkes too close for me to write about clearly. If you deny her any place in your heart and you can return to the abbey with a middling penance and a minor stigma. Things like this have happened before. Please, John, by all the ties that bind us and the place I hold in your heart, aside this woman’s and above it, do what you promised to: entrust the child to the Godwinsons and return to the Abbey. Awaiting your reply, your own Rufus ------------------------------------- Clairveaux Abbey, Cornwall May 2, 1121 Brother John, Godwinson Hall, Cornwall Dearest John, All of Clairveaux is praying for your brother. May all Our Lady’s blessings attend his soul in Heaven. Though we have known of his impending death for these many years, it still saddens us all. He was unflinching in the face of pain, an example to us all. But surely you were not serious when you said you expect to stay at Godwinson Hall after the funeral? Beatrice’s husband is a worthy man, he would manage the Hall well. It was not her fault that your bastard infant died, it was sickly and with no mother it had no chance. Through all that has happened you are still a monk. Your father did not send you to Clairveaux simply because you were a younger son. It is only my opinion but I believe that he saw that there was much of himself in you. There are lessons here for you to learn! John, do you care nothing for permanence? Why is it such hell for you to stay still? Your six years here must seem like an eternity to you, although you have been physically in Clairveaux for only half that time. Once you spent nearly eleven months here, three hundred and nineteen days by my count, what is it to stay three hundred nineteen days in one place? That’s nothing. If I finish a Bible in eleven months I think my progress rapid. Why is it so hard for you to spend even a year here? Is it the darkness? What is there to fear from darkness and silence and silent men among holy texts? What is there to fear from the peace of a monastery? You could be a teacher or an administrator, what did you have against those jobs when you tried them? There must be something to keep you here. It is one of Saint Benedict’s Rules: Once you have entered a monastic order, you are there until you die. With Old, and now Young Thomas dead I doubt that there is anyone on this earth who loves you more than I do, so believe my sincerity when I beg you to stay at Clairveaux. For Saint Benedict’s rules, for the peace of the monastery, for your soul and my peace. Ah, there it is, the true selfish reason among all the pious ones. In the abbey I have my parchment, my inks, my imagination, a sublime routine. That I have lived contented in the Scriptorium for nearly seven years confirms that I love these things, but even I cannot live on them alone. You wouldn’t think that of me, would you? I’ve never felt trapped at Clairveaux before. But with the threat of your departure I can’t even write in peace, it doesn’t seem worth it if you leave. It’s not even your physical presence that matters so much. I’ve learned to do without that. It’s the idea that we’re both brothers at Clairveaux. Again, simple selfishness! Selfish that I would deprive you of your peace to maintain my peace, selfish that I would jail you here to sometimes hear your laugh! Selfish and silly to think that our Cisterian robes make you anything more than my adopted brother and friend. I mourn your father’s incessant lechery. I know how much it cost your family and shackled you from birth. I know what it is to have a prostitute for a mother, and that is to have no mother at all. I cannot put myself in your shoes, you who are nothing like me, nothing at all . . . As the son of some whore and some peasant, I don’t share a single drop of blood with you-- so how can I be in any position to order you to do anything, no matter what emotions cloud my mind like an infernal vision and make me forget myself! Sir John Godwinson, how can I stop you from doing whatever you want? your own Rufus
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