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Chapter XVII

Of the Foundation of the two Monasteries at Pastrana, the monks and the nuns'. This was in 1569.

Well, as soon as the house at Toledo was founded, I had spent a fortnight up to Whitsun Eve, furnishing the chapel, and putting up gratings and other things, and there had been a great deal to do — for, as I said, we lived for about a year in that house — and I was fatigued with going about with the workmen; and at last, all was finished. That morning, when we sat down to breakfast in the refectory, it was such a great comfort to see that I had nothing more to do and that at that Whitsuntide I could for a space rejoice with our Lord, that I could hardly eat, my soul felt so happy.

I did not deserve this happiness; for while I was enjoying it, they came to say that a servant of the Princess of Eboli1, Ruy Gomez de Silva's wife, was there. I went to him: and it was to say that she was sending for me; for she and I for some time past had been talking about founding a convent at Pastrana. I did not think it would have been so soon. I was sorry: for it was very risky to leave a convent founded so recently and against opposition; and so I determined at once not to go, and told him so. He said that that could not be suffered; because the Princess was there2 already, and had come for no other purpose: it would be putting a slight on her. For all this, it did not enter my head to go; and so I told him to go to breakfast, and I would write to the Princess, and he might go. He was a very just man, and although it did not please him, yet he accepted it, when I had given him my reasons.

The nuns who had just come to live in the convent could not see that it was in any way possible to leave the house so soon. I went before the Blessed Sacrament to ask of the Lord that I might so write as not to give offence; for that would have been a very bad thing for us, because the friars were just beginning. And on all accounts it was a great thing to keep Ruy Gomez' favour, because he had so much influence with the king and with everyone. I do not remember whether I thought of this; but I know that I was very anxious not to displease the Princess. While I was praying, it was said to me from our Lord, That I must not fail to go, that my going would effect more than that foundation, and that I must take with me the Rule and Constitutions.

When I heard this, although I saw strong reasons for not going, I dared not do otherwise than as I was used in similar matters; that is, to be guided by the advice of the confessor. So I sent for him, without telling him what I had heard in prayer: for I am always better satisfied not to do this, but to beseech the Lord to give them light according to what they can know of their own knowledge; and His Majesty, when He desires a thing to be done, puts it into their heart. This has often happened to me: and so it was now; for taking all into consideration, he thought I had better go, and so I determined to go. I left Toledo on the second day of Whitsuntide. The way was through Madrid: and my companions and I lodged at a Franciscan convent with the lady who built it and lived in it, Dona Leonor Mascarenas, a great servant of our Lord, who had been the King's governess. I had lodged there before, at other times when there had been occasion to pass that way, and she had always shewn me much kindness.

This lady told me that she was glad I had come at that time, because there was a hermit there who greatly desired to know me, and she thought that the life which he and his companions lived was very much the same as what our Rule prescribed. As I had only two friars, it came into my mind that it would be a great thing if he possibly might be one; so I begged her to arrange an interview. He was living in an apartment which she had given him, with another young Brother, Juan de la Miseria, a great servant of God, but very simple in worldly matters. Well, having opened communications, he came to tell me that he was intending to go to Rome.

And before I proceed further, I desire to narrate what I know of this Father, Mariano de San Benito. He was an Italian physician and was of great skill and ability. Being in the service of the Queen of Poland, steward of all her household, he never was inclined to marry, but held a Commandery of St John2. Our Lord called him to leave all for the better saving of his soul. Then he had to go through troubles; for he was accused of being concerned in a murder, and was kept two years in prison. He sought the assistance of no lawyer, nor of anyone to undertake his defence, but only God and His justice. They got witnesses who said that he had sent for them to murder the man. It happened just as with Holy Susanna's old men, that when they were asked separately where he was at the time, one said he was sitting on a couch, and the other said he was at a window. At last they came to confess how they had got it up: and he assured me that it had cost him a great deal of money to save them from punishment; and that the very man who had planned the attack on him had fallen into his hands, for he had certain information laid against him, and that in the proceedings he had done all he could not to harm him.

These and other virtues — for he is a pure and chaste man, shy of having dealings with women — must have won for him the light which our Lord gave him on the character of the world, that he might be led to leave it. So he began to consider which Order he would enter, and, as he told me, when he thought over first one and then another with a view to his own needs, in every one he found some drawback. He heard that near Seville there were some hermits living together in a stretch of waste ground called the Tardon, with a very saintly man, Father Mateo3, for their Superior. Each lived apart in his own cell without saying the Divine Office, but they had an oratory where they met for mass. They neither had any endowment nor asked or received alms, but lived by the work of their hands, and each ate alone, very poorly. When I heard of it, it seemed to me the very picture of our holy founders. He went on eight years in this manner of life.

When the Holy Council of Trent took place, and it was decreed that all hermits were to join some Order, he was minded to go to Rome to request that these might be left as they were, and this was his intention when I spoke to him. Then when he told me his manner of life, I shewed him our primitive Rule, and told him that without putting himself to so much trouble he might keep all his, since it was the same as ours; especially in the matter of living by the work of his hands, which was what he cared much for, telling me that the world was lost through idleness, and that it was their idleness which made it think so little of monks. As I was of the same mind, we agreed at once, and indeed altogether; for when I had given him my reasons for believing that he could please God greatly in our habit, he said he would think over it that night. I saw that he had already almost made up his mind, and I concluded that this was what I had heard in prayer, That I was going for more than to found a convent of nuns. It gave me the greatest satisfaction: for I felt sure it would be greatly to our Lord's service if he entered the Order.

His Majesty, desiring this, so moved him during that night, that next day he sent for me, quite determined, although surprised to find his intention so quickly changed, and that by a

[cardos], thence called Cardon, afterwards Tardon. They cultivated the ground, on the principle " He that will not work, neither let him eat." When St Pius V ordered all hermits to adopt the Kule of some Order, they took that of St Basil. woman (as even now he sometimes tells me); as if this were the cause, arid not the Lord, Who has power to change the heart. Great are His judgements. For he had been so many years without knowing what estate to take upon himself (for the life which he was then living was no estate, for they took no vows and were under no obligation but to live there in retirement). And so suddenly did God move him and gave him to understand how much he would serve Him in our estate, and that His Majesty had need of him to carry forward what was begun. For he has helped us much, and up to the present it has cost him many labours, and will cost him more before he has done with it, so far as one can judge from the present hostility to the primitive Rule. For through his ability, skill, and good life, he has great influence with many people who help and protect us.

Then he told me how Ruy Gomez had given him at Pastrana — the very place to which I was going — a good hermitage and site to make a settlement of hermits, and that he would like to make it one of our Order, and take the habit. I thanked him and gave great thanks to our Lord, because with the two licences which our most reverend Father General had given me for two monasteries, there was only one made. And from thence I sent a messenger to the aforesaid two Fathers, the Provincial and the late Provincial, entreating them to give me a licence, since the foundation could not be made without their consent: and I wrote to Don Alvaro de Mendoza, the Bishop of Avila, who was our great friend, begging him to obtain it of them. It pleased God that they thought it well. They must have deemed that in so remote a place it could not do them much harm. Father Mariano gave me his word to go there as soon as the licence came: with this I departed well content.

I found there the Princess and Prince Ruy Gomez, who gave me a warm welcome. They allotted to us a separate apartment, in which we stayed longer than I had expected; for the house was so small that the Princess had ordered a good deal of it to be pulled down and built up again: not the walls, however, but a good many things.

There I remained three months, going through considerable difficulties because the Princess asked of me several things which our Rule does not admit of; so I determined to come away without founding rather than do it. But Prince Ruy Gomez with his good sense — for he possesses much, and is open to reason — prevailed on his wife to give way, and I yielded on some points: for I was more eager to have the monastery of the monks than that of the nuns, for I knew how important -it was, as has since been seen. During this time, the aforesaid hermits, Mariano and his companion, arrived; and, the licence having come, the Prince and Princess consented that the hermitage which they had given should be established for hermits of the Barefoot friars. I sent for Father Fray Antonio of Jesus, who was the first there was at Mancera, to begin the foundation of this monastery. I prepared them habits and cloaks and did all that I could that they might be able to take the habit without delay. During that time4 I had sent to the convent of Medina del Campo for more nuns, for I had not taken with me more than two. At Medina there was a Father already in years, for although he was not very old, he was not young, but he was a very good preacher. His name was Brother Baltasar of Jesus. When he heard that this monastery was to be founded, he came with the nuns with the intention of becoming a Barefoot friar himself; and so he did when he came.

When he told me his intention, I praised God. He gave the habit to Father Mariano and his companion, both of them as lay Brothers: for neither would Father Mariano hear of being a priest, but wanted to enter the Order to be least of all, nor could I persuade him. Afterwards, at the command of our most reverend Father General, he was ordained priest.

Well, when both monasteries were founded, and Father Fray Antonio of Jesus had arrived, novices began to come in to the monks' house (of what sort, some of them, will be told hereafter), and to serve the Lord in such reality as, if it please God, will be written by one who knows how to tell it better than I; for about these matters I know very little. As for the nuns, their convent was in great favour with the Prince and Princess, and the Princess was assiduous in taking care of them and shewing them kindness, until Prince Ruy Gomez died. Then the devil — or it may have been that the Lord permitted it, His Majesty knows why — in a sudden passion of grief at his death, the Princess entered the convent as a nun5. In the grief which she was in, the rules of enclosure, to which she was not used, cannot have been much to her taste: and in consequence of the Holy Council's decrees, the Prioress6 could not give her the freedom she desired. The Princess came to be so displeased with her and with them all, that even after she had taken off the habit and was in her own house, they were an offence to her; and the poor Sisters lived in such uneasiness that I tried in every way I could, with entreaties to the Superiors, that they would move the convent from Pastrana and establish one in Segovia, as will presently be narrated. Thither they went, leaving behind them whatever the Princess had given them7, and taking with them some nuns whom she had ordered them to receive without dowry. The beds and trifling articles which those same nuns had brought in, they took with them. They left the people of the place very sorry for their departure.

It gave me the greatest satisfaction in the world to see them in peace: for I knew perfectly well that it was not at all their fault that the Princess was offended, but that when she was wearing the habit they treated her just as before she took it. The occasion was only what 1 said above; and the Princess's distress and that of a servant whom she took with her was, so far as is known, to blame for it all. To make short of it, the Lord Who permitted it must have seen that this convent was out of place there, for His judgements are deep and contrary to our understanding. I should not have ventured there on my own judgement alone without that of learned and saintly people.

Footnotes

  1. Dona Ana de Mendoza. 2 [At Pastrana. Tr.] ↩

  2. [Of Jerusalem. Tr.] ↩

  3. The Venerable father Mateo de la Fuente, the restorer of the Order of St Basil in Spain. He was born about 1524 at Alminuete, near Toledo, and studied at Salamanca. He began living as a hermit near Cordova, but, finding himself to be gaining admiration, withdrew into the wilds of the Sierra Morena. At the command of his director, Juan de Avila, he took others with him, and they inhabited a waste place full of thistles ↩

  4. [Before Brother Antonio arrived. Tr.] T. F 8 ↩

  5. This violent fit of grief and devotion blazed up and cooled down in three days. It pleased Providence that all communications between Theresa and the Princess should be broken off. When Mother Isabel de Santo Domingo heard that the Princess was turning nun, she exclaimed, * ' The Princess a nun! It is all over with the convent. " And so it was. ↩

  6. St Theresa, writing to Bafiez, says "The nuns of Pastrana, although the Princess has now returned to her own house, are like prisoners. The Prior of Atocha, who has been there, did not venture to see them. The friars too are in evil case. I do not see why such vassalage should be endured." ↩

  7. Before starting for Segovia the nuns gave into the hands of the mayor of Pastrana an inventory of everything the Princess had given them. 8—2 ↩

Chapter 18 of 32