De sorte qu'une Religieuse hors de sa cloture est comme une pierre hors de son centre; comme un arbre hors de terre; comme Adam et Eve hors du Paradis terrestre; comme le corbeau hors de l'arche qui ne s'arreste qu'a des charognes; comme un poisson hors de l'eau, selon le grand Saint Antoine et Saint Bernard; comme une brebis hors de sa bergerie et en danger d'estre devoree des loups, selon Saint Theodore Studite; comme un oiseau hors de son nid et une grenouille hors de son marais, selon le meme Saint Bernard; comme un mort hors de son tombeau, qui infecte les personnes qui s'en approchent, selon Pierre le Venerable et la Regle attribuee a Saint Jerome; et par consequent dans un etat tout a fait oppose a la vie Reguliere qu'elle a embrassee. J. B. THIERS (1681). The famous chapter LXVI of the Benedictine Rule enunciated the principle that the professed monk should remain within the precincts of his cloister and eschew all wandering in the world[1067]. It is clear, however, that the Rule allowed a certain latitude and that monks and nuns were to be allowed to leave their houses under certain conditions and for necessary causes. Brethren working at a distance or going on a journey may be excused attendance at the divine office, if they cannot reach the church in time[1068]. Brethren sent upon an errand are forbidden to accept invitations to eat outside the house without the consent of their superior[1069]. Moreover longer journeys are plainly contemplated, in which they might have to spend a night or more outside their monastery[1070]. But no one might ever leave the cloister bounds without the permission of the superior; and it was the obvious intention of St Benedict to reduce to a minimum all wandering in the world. Strictly speaking this system of enclosure applied equally to monks and to nuns; but from the earliest times it was considered to be a more vital necessity for the well being of the latter; and the history of the enclosure movement is in effect the history of an effort to add a fourth vow of claustration to the three cardinal vows of the nun[1071]. The reasons for this severity are sufficiently obvious, and show that curious contradiction of ideas which is so common in all general theories about women. On the one hand the immense importance attached by the medieval Church to the state of virginity, exemplified in St John Chrysostom's remarks that Christian virgins are as far above the rest of mankind as are the angels, made it all important that this priceless jewel should not be exposed to danger in a wicked world[1072]. On the other hand the medieval contempt for the fragility of women led to a cynical conviction that only when they were shut up behind the high walls of the cloister was it possible to guarantee their virtue; _aut virum aut murum oportet mulierem habere_[1073]. Both views received support from the deep-rooted idea as