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YORK.
Outward morality at the least, courteous behaviour,
industry, and thrift, and attention to religious duties,
were imperatively demanded of all who sought enrolment
on the lists of their members, and a failure
to fulfil these requirements was punished by expulsion.
The influence for good which these societies
must have exercised for a very long series of years in
this country can scarcely be over-estimated ; and it
must never be forgotten that they were organised by
the spontaneous action of the people themselves.
Equally curious illustrations of mediaeval religious
life may be gathered from the archiepiscopal registers
of the period with which we are now dealing.
Amongst those which are most noteworthy is the
custom which prevailed, to a considerable extent, of
a woman becoming what was called a vowess after her
husband's death. She came before the Archbishop,
or his suffragan^ or some other prelate, or the abbot
or prior of some monastery, who were licensed to
receive her vow by the primate of the Northern Province.
It was a solemn vow of chastitj', pledging
her to remain, in the words of Holy Scripture, "a
widow indeed " for the remainder of her life. From
more than one of the entries we learn something of
the accompanying ceremonial. It took place immediately
before mass, and the officiating prelate, after
the postulant had signed a written promise, gave her
his benediction and invested her with a mantle, a veil,
and a ring.i But she was not separated from the
" Praefatam Elizabet benedixit, ac sibi clamite (chlamyde),
velo et annulo caritatis induebat et ornavit."— "Test. Ebor.''
iii. p. 313.