Ancrene Riwle

Ancrene Riwle
The damselization of women in the church

In the early Christian church women were not just members of the congregation, they were also the preachers, teachers, deacons, and elders. Women had as much power in the early church as men, and in some cases were thought of as having a better connection with the Lord than men. However, as time progressed, men began to take more control over the church and women were forced to serve in what the men determined as “appropriate” roles. Women were stripped of their preaching and leadership roles and became subservient to the monks and priests of Catholic Europe. Women who wished to join the church were shunted into monasteries where isolated or small collective worship were the norm, where they were seen as the pure, holy damsels, much like the Virgin mother before the birth of Christ. These women were places of religious pedestals, creating an aura of the damsel that was so popular in secular society.
The sample of the Ancrene Riwle in our text portrays the women of the church, or mankind in general, as a hard-hearted damsel in distress that must be saved from destruction by the brave and noble king (Jesus). Because this damsel does not value all that the king has done for her before, he must die and rise again to win her love. By using the secular metaphor of the knight to represent Christ and the damsel to represent mankind, the author of the Ancrene Riwle has created a powerful message that what “you buy cheaply you do not value highly (159).” Though this may be the truth, the Ancrene Riwle also does not portray women in a flattering light and seeks to further remove women from power in the church by discrediting their religious contributions.