Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [416]
“An enclosure,” the man told him, and seeing the boy’s look of puzzlement he explained: “He’s going to be a hermit. They’re taking him to his cell.”
Will had never seen such a thing before.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Eustace Godfrey.”
Will had never heard of him.
The ceremony of enclosure, as opposed to the agricultural practice of that name, was a grim and stately affair. First the priest had recited a mass for the dead in the church, at which Eustace had made his vows and put on the coarse woollen habit he was henceforward to wear. Now he was making the slow procession to his cell. Will watched, fascinated.
At the north door of the church, the little group stopped. In the recent rebuilding, a large porch had been added to this side of the church and over it was a large chamber that was reached by a staircase. This was to be Eustace’s cell, inside which he would remain in prayer and meditation until the day he died. Now, while Eustace waited below, the priest and his acolytes went up the stairs to bless the cell.
Will was not able to see the part of the ceremony which followed, since it took place inside. Its symbolism was gruesome.
First Eustace was summoned up the stairs. Inside the chamber he was ordered to lie down on the hard wooden board he was to sleep on in future and then, while he folded his hands as though he were dead, the priest said over him the funeral rites. One of the two acolytes swung a censer, the other held out a bag of earth from which the priest scooped up handfuls and scattered them over Eustace’s body. Then he sprinkled holy water over him.
“Eustace Godfrey,” he announced when it was done. “You are dead to the world. Eustace Godfrey,” he continued, “you are alive only unto God.”
Then he turned and all three came down the stairs, closing the door and ceremonially locking it behind them.
“Eustace Godfrey has entered his tomb,” he cried to the crowd of watchers. “Pray for his soul.”
In fact, his enclosure was not as complete as the ceremony suggested. Before being licensed to become a hermit, Eustace had had to satisfy the archdeacon at the cathedral not only that his desire and vocation for the spiritual life was genuine, but also that he could support himself in a decent state in the place chosen for him. Entombed though he was, a servant would bring him food and clean his chamber every day; his son and daughter could visit him. The retirement into a life of solitary prayer was not, at least in England, uncomfortable. On the other hand, he must stay where he was, perhaps for many years, until he died.
With this arrangement Eustace was quite content. Indeed, the step he was taking that day was not illogical. His attempts to come to terms with the busy city, attempts that he had made as conscientiously and valiantly as any of his ancestors had gone to war or ridden in the lists, had all ended in failure. His lovely daughter had finally, at the age of twenty-eight, married an elderly farmer from Townton. There were no children. His son had not gone to the Inns of Court or made his way in London: he had settled in a modest house in the Blue Boar chequer where he traded unsuccessfully in wool, and drank more than he should. Eustace had continued to invest his dwindling resources, sinking nearly half of what he had in a venture with a Scandinavian merchant while England was in dispute with the merchants of the German Hanseatic League. In 1474 a peace had been signed with the Hansa: the Germans had regained their trade, and Godfrey and his Scandinavian partner had been almost ruined.
It was the combination of these disasters working upon his own natural inclinations that had turned his mind finally to the mystical world. Year by year, he had gone to hear more masses each day; his readings had for a long time been confined to the works of the mystics: Thomas à Kempis, The Cloud of Unknowing and his favourite Julian of Norwich.
By the turn of the year he had no more desire to live in the house near St Ann’s Gate.
“I have done with the world,” he told his children. And it was true.
Nor was it