Aelred of Rievaulx and the Nun of Watton: an Episode in the Early History of the Gilbertine order

Abstract

Although the story of the nun of Watton by Aelred of Rievaulx was published by Twysden in the seventeenth century and reprinted by Migne, it has never been studied in detail for the light it throws on religious life and attitudes in the twelfth century and on the history of the order founded by St Gilbert of Sempringham. This neglect has been the result less of ignorance than of the nature of episode, which was described as ‘disgraceful and fanatical’ by Dixon, ‘distressing’ by Eckenstein and by Graham, ‘painful’ by Powicke, ‘strange’ by Knowles, ‘of almost casual brutality’ by Nicholl, and as ‘curious’ and ‘unsavoury’ by Aelred Squire.

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